Blue Origin’s New Shepard mission carries postcards, research payload

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December 19, 2023

New Shepard’s booster lands on the pad during NS-24. (Blue Origin Photo contributed)

WEST TEXAS — Blue Origin completed its 24th New Shepard flight and 13th payload mission today from Launch Site One in West Texas.

The flight carried 33 payloads from NASA, academia, research institutions, and commercial companies, bringing the number of payloads flown on New Shepard to more than 150.

Club for the Future, Blue Origin’s nonprofit, flew 38,000 postcards as part of its Postcards to Space program. Each postcard will be returned to its creator stamped “Flown to Space.” The club recently added a digital method to create and send postcards, which can be found here.

The mission launched at 10:42 CST and lasted 10 minutes, 13 seconds with the booster and capsule each returning.

“A special thank you to all of our customers who flew important science today and the students who contributed postcards to advance our future of living and working in space for the benefit of Earth,” said Phil Joyce, senior vice president, New Shepard. “Demand for New Shepard flights continues to grow and we’re looking forward to increasing our flight cadence in 2024.”

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