article propulsion module made five successful flights in 2015 and 2016, being retired after its fifth flight in October 2016. First vertical soft landing After the loss of NS1, a second New Shepard vehicle was built, NS2. Its first flight, and the second test flight of New Shepard overall, was carried out on 23 November 2015, reaching altitude with successful recovery of both capsule and booster stage. The booster rocket successfully performed a powered vertical landing. This was the first such successful rocket vertical landing on Earth after travelling higher than that the McDonnell Douglas DC-XA achieved in the 1990s, and first after sending something into space. Jeff Bezos was quoted as saying that Blue Origin planned to use the same architecture of New Shepard for the booster stage of their orbital vehicle. Second vertical soft landing On 22 January 2016, Blue Origin successfully repeated the flight profile of 23 November 2015 launch with the same New Shepard vehicle. New Shepard launched, reached a maximum altitude of , and, after separation, both capsule and launch vehicle returned to the ground intact. This accomplishment demonstrated re-usability of New Shepard and a turnaround time of 61 days. Third vertical soft landing On 2 April 2016, the same New Shepard booster flew for a third time, reaching , before returning successfully. Fourth vertical soft landing On 19 June 2016, the same New Shepard booster flew, now for a fourth time, again reaching over , before returning successfully for a VTVL rocket-powered landing. The capsule returned once again under parachutes but, this time, did a test descent with only two parachutes before finishing with a brief pulse of retro rocket propulsion to slow the ground impact velocity to . The two parachutes "slowed the descent to 23 mph, as opposed to the usual 16 mph with three parachutes". Crushable bumpers are used to further reduce the landing shock through energy-absorbing deformation. Fifth and final flight test A fifth and final test flight of the NS2 propulsion module was conducted on 5 October 2016. The principal objective was to boost the passenger module to the point of highest dynamic pressure at transonic velocity and conduct a flight test of the in-flight abort system. Due to subsequent buffet and forces that impact the propulsion module after the high velocity separation of the passenger capsule that are outside the design region of the PM, NS2 was not