Suborbital space tourism

Private space company Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, announced on January 31 that it will suspend its New Shepard suborbital space tourism programme for at least two years, shifting its focus towards strengthening its lunar capabilities.

The New Shepard programme is part of suborbital space tourism, a form of space travel in which paying passengers are flown to the edge of space but do not complete a full orbit around the Earth. Such flights typically reach an altitude of about 100 km, crossing the Kármán line, the internationally recognised boundary of space.

Unlike orbital missions—such as those to the International Space Station—suborbital vehicles do not attain the extremely high speeds required to remain in orbit. Instead, they follow a parabolic trajectory, similar to the arc of a thrown object. The entire experience usually lasts 10 to 15 minutes.

At the peak of the flight, the spacecraft’s engines shut down, allowing passengers to experience several minutes of weightlessness. During this phase, passengers can float freely inside the cabin and observe the curvature of the Earth against the darkness of space through large viewing windows. As the vehicle lacks sufficient orbital velocity, it is eventually pulled back to Earth by gravity, re-entering the atmosphere.