Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has donated a New Shepard rocket booster, plus a New Shepard capsule, to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
The history-making hardware will go on display at the museum’s main building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in renovated galleries due to open in 2026. “There is no better final landing pad for New Shepard than the Smithsonian,” Bezos said in a statement. “We are honored and grateful.”
The reusable booster, known as Propulsion Module 4-2, was employed for five uncrewed flights — ranging from the New Shepard program’s first successful booster landing in 2015 to an escape system test that could have destroyed the propulsion module in 2016.
Before that final outing for the booster, Bezos said it would be put on display if it survived. “We’d really like to retire it after this test and put it in a museum,” he said at the time. “Sadly, that’s not likely. This test will probably destroy the booster.”
Fortunately for the Smithsonian, Bezos’ prediction was wrong.
