Blue Origin achieved company's historic milestone on Sunday, (April 19), by successfully reusing a New Glenn first-stage booster for the third flight (NG-3), but the mission ultimately failed to deliver its payload correctly due to a second-stage error.
The rocket launched at 1125 UTC from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, where the booster named "Never Tell Me The Odds" (GS1-SN002) made its second flight, marking the first time Blue Origin has re-flown an orbital-class booster.
"Never Tell Me The Odds" shut off its engines and separated from the upper part of the rocket about 3.5 minutes into flight, landing back on Blue Origin's droneship "Jacklyn" in the Atlantic Ocean around six minutes later.
Blue Origin workers across the country cheered loudly as the booster returned to Earth, chanting GS-1 (the technical name of the booster, which Blue Origin calls "Never Tell Me The Odds") during landing.
Jordan Charles, vice president of New Glenn for Blue Origin, said during launch commentary that engineers refurbished the thermal protection system along the base of the rocket so it could better handle the heat of reentry.
"That gets pretty hot as you're coming in during our reentry process," Charles said. "So we want to definitely see and correlate a bit better our thermal environments as we're flying this particular mission."
Blue Origin also made guidance system upgrades to the booster for today's flight.
"We made a few tweaks with respect to how the rocket actually reenters, and then on the inside of the rocket, just making sure all of our systems continue to work as we as we expect that they will," Charles said.
The first reuse of a New Glenn first stage, even if its engines are new, is a significant step toward the company's ultimate vision for the rocket, whose first stages are designed to fly at least 25 times apiece. For this flight, Blue Origin replaced all seven BE-4 engines with new units and tested upgrades, including a thermal protection system on one nozzle, while retaining the original booster shell.
Of the two New Glenn missions to date, only NG-2 successfully landed its first stage aboard the Jacklyn droneship. That mission launched NASA's ESCAPADE probes on a mission to Mars in November 2025. New Glenn debuted in January 2025, on a mission that reached orbit successfully but did not pull off a first-stage landing.
While the first stage performed flawlessly and landed on the Jacklyn during Sunday's launch, the second stage placed the BlueBird 7 satellite for AST SpaceMobile into a lower-than-planned, unusable orbit.
The BlueBird 7 satellite, which features a massive 2,400-square-foot phased array antenna, separated from the rocket and powered on, but its onboard propulsion system could not compensate for the insufficient altitude to reach its intended operational position. AST SpaceMobile confirmed that the satellite will be de-orbited as it lacks the fuel to climb to the required orbit, though the hardware was fully insured.
The failure occurred because the New Glenn's upper stage failed to execute a planned second engine firing or did not run for the full duration required to raise the payload to the target orbit of approximately 285 miles (460 kilometers) at a 49-degree inclination.
"We have confirmed payload separation. AST SpaceMobile has confirmed the satellite has powered on," Blue Origin wrote in a social media update. "The payload was placed into an off-nominal orbit. We are currently assessing and will update when we have more detailed information."
AST SpaceMobile later provided its own update. "While the satellite separated from the launch vehicle and powered on, the altitude is too low to sustain operations with its on-board thruster technology and will [be] de-orbited," the company said in a statement. "The cost of the satellite is expected to be recovered under the company’s insurance policy."
BlueBird 7 was the second satellite in Texas company AST SpaceMobile's "Block 2" constellation, designed to provide direct-to-cellphone 4G/5G service, with the company targeting 45 satellites in orbit by the end of 2026. Its predecessor, BlueBird 6, launched on an Indian LVM3 rocket last December. BlueBird 6 is one of the largest satellites in space, with an antenna that spans 2,400 square feet (223 square meters). BlueBird 7 has the same dimensions.
BlueBirds 1-5, the "Block 1" version, while sizable in their own right, pale in comparison; their antennas cover a more modest 693 square feet (64.4 m) apiece.
Bluebird 7 was scheduled to be deployed into orbit from New Glenn's upper stage about 1 hour and 15 minutes after liftoff. But about 2 hours after liftoff, Blue Origin reported that something appeared to go wrong.
New Glenn stands 322 feet (98 meters) tall — about the same size as the NASA Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that launched the Artemis 2 mission around the moon, and nearly 100 feet (30 m) taller than the 230-foot (70-m) Falcon 9.
New Glenn's first stage is powered by seven BE-4 engines, which burn a fuel mixture of liquid oxygen and liquid methane, known as methalox — the same fuel used by the 33 SpaceX-built Raptor engines that power Starship's Super Heavy booster.
The main goal of Sunday's New Glenn rocket mission was not only to demonstrate it's reusable, but to launch a massive satellite into orbit. Its reusability would allow the company to compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Starship rockets, the only orbital-capable boosters to date with proven reusability.
Blue Origin is relying on New Glenn to launch the company's Blue Moon lander, one of two commercial vehicles NASA selected to land astronauts on the moon as part of the agency's Artemis program.
SpaceX had been NASA's first choice for a crewed lunar lander, with Starship slated to put astronauts on the moon on the Artemis 3 mission. But delays and a recent shakeup of Artemis architecture has put Blue Moon back in the spotlight.
During Sunday's launch, Blue Origin officials said its Mark 1 Blue Moon lander, an uncrewed version of the lander, will launch to the moon by the end of this summer. The lander recently completed environmental testing at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. It is now back at Blue Origin's Rocket Park facility in Cape Canaveral for final work. The problem New Glenn experienced on today's launch could complicate that timeline, however.
Artemis 3 will no longer go to the moon. NASA now wants astronauts aboard its Orion spacecraft to practice rendezvous and docking maneuvers in Earth orbit with either or both of the lunar landers, and has indicated a willingness to fly with whichever is ready once it's time to launch — hopefully, in mid-2027.
Both landers have a list of qualifications and technology demonstrations to complete before NASA certifies either to support astronauts aboard, such as on-orbit cryogenic fuel transfer and uncrewed lunar landings, but each is making progress.
SpaceX is currently performing prelaunch tests on the Version 3 of its Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage, which are expected to lift off on the vehicle's 12th test flight in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the Mark 1 (Mk1) Blue Moon vehicle recently completed a stint inside the massive vacuum chamber at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and was later shipped to the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, for further testing.
