The liftoff is scheduled for 8:50 am Central time (1450 GMT) from a Texas launchpad. The rocket will be carrying several science experiments for NASA.

The small rocket crossed the frontier of space last year, which is internationally agreed to be 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth, known as the Karman Line.

New Shepard reached a height of 66 miles (107 km) in April 2018.

The spacecraft is designed to one day carry up to six passengers for a journey lasting a total of 11 minutes.

Virgin Galactic, headed by British billionaire Richard Branson, is also working on a vessel of its own to carry tourists to space.

On December 13, 2018, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, flew higher than it ever had before, surpassing what the US Air Force considers the boundary of space, and marking the first manned flight to space from US soil since 2011.