"It’s time. You can buy the very first seat on New Shepard. Sign up to learn how at blueorigin.com. Details coming May 5th," Blue Origin said via Twitter.

The company’s New Shepard rocket - named after US astronaut Alan Shepard - is designed to bring a crew up into suborbital space before safely returning to Earth’s surface.

A video accompanying the tweet appears to show the New Shepard rocket booster completing a vertical landing while a crew capsule also returns to land using several parachutes.

Private aerospace companies like Blue Origin, founded by multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos, and rival Elon Musk’s SpaceX, have seen significant growth in recent years, both in terms of public-private partnerships with space agencies and in terms of private space tourism.

To date, the Russian space agency Roscosmos is the only entity that has sent tourists in space.