Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin has successfully used one of its New Glenn rockets. for the first time on Sunday, but the company failed in its primary mission: delivering a communications satellite into orbit for customer AST SpaceMobile.
AST SpaceMobile released a statement Sunday afternoon that the upper stage of the New Glenn rocket placed the BlueBird 7 satellite into a “lower than planned” orbit. The satellite successfully separated from the rocket and launched, but the altitude is too low to “continue operations” and must now be de-orbited – left to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
According to the company, the loss of the satellite is covered by AST SpaceMobile’s insurance policy, and there are consecutive BlueBird satellites due to be completed within a month. AST SpaceMobile has contracts with more than Blue Origin, and the company says it could send 45 more planes into space by the end of 2026.
But it represents the first major setback for Blue Origin’s New Glenn program, which won’t make its first flight until January 2025 after more than a decade of development. It was New Glen’s second mission carrying a customer payload into space, after last November it launched its twin Mars-bound spacecraft on behalf of NASA. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The apparent failure of New Glenn’s second phase could have broader implications beyond Blue Origin’s near-term commercial ambitions. The company is working hard to become one of the primary launch providers for NASA’s Artemis missions to the moon and beyond. The space agency and the Trump administration have pressed Blue Origin and SpaceX to land a lunar landing by the end of President Donald Trump’s second term, before they begin putting humans back on the moon.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp even said his company will “move heaven and earth” to help NASA get back to the moon sooner.
Blue Origin recently tested the first version of its lunar lander, which the company is expected to test and launch (without a crew) at some point this year. Blue Origin suggested last year that it was considering launching the lander for New Glenn’s third mission, but instead, AST decided to launch the SpaceMobile satellite.
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New Glenn’s third launch got off to a good start on Sunday, with the mega-rocket blasting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 7:35 a.m. local time. It was the first time Blue Origin reused a previously flown New Glenn booster – the same one that flew during New Glenn’s second mission. About 10 minutes after takeoff, the booster fell back and landed on a drone ship in the ocean, just like last November. Jeff Bezos even shared drone footage Booster’s landing on X, a social media site owned by rival Elon Musk. (Musk suggested congratulations.)
About two hours after launch, Blue Origin announced itself post The New Glenn upper stage put the AST SpaceMobile satellite into an “off-par orbit,” he said. The company has not released any additional information since that post.
Blue Origin spent a long time developing New Glenn, and the company’s decision to launch commercial payloads during these first missions was seen as a sign of confidence in the process. By comparison, SpaceX has spent the past few years flying test versions of its massive Starship, but has struggled to use dummy payloads while working out the rocket’s kinks.
SpaceX lost payloads deeper in Falcon 9 program. In 2015, on the 19th Falcon 9 mission, the rocket exploded mid-flight and lost the entire International Space Station cargo ship. In 2016, a Falcon 9 exploded on the launch pad during a test, causing the loss of an internet satellite for Meta.
