Blue Origin has seen another successful return of the first stage of the New Glenn rocket to Earth. However, the mission failed to launch the Blue Bird 7 satellite into the planned orbit.
The stage of the New Glenn reusable heavy launch vehicle, developed and operated by billionaire Jeff Bezos’ American company Blue Origin, successfully landed on Earth again on Sunday after taking off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral, but it put the Blue Bird 7 communications satellite into the wrong orbit. TASR informs about it with reference to the agencies DPA and Reuters.
“We are currently investigating this and will provide an update when we have more detailed information,” Blue Origin said.
The rocket took off around 1:25 p.m. CET, and its first stage landed on the Jacklyn platform in the Atlantic about ten minutes later. The BlueBird 7 satellite, developed by AST SpaceMobile, was supposed to be launched into low orbit, but it failed and will have to be scrapped.
“While the satellite has separated from the launch vehicle and powered up, its flight altitude is insufficient to maintain self-propelled operation and it will be de-orbited,” AST SpaceMobile said in a statement.
Mission and competition
BlueBird 7 was supposed to be part of a constellation of several communication satellites. It was one of the largest commercial satellites with an antenna area of more than 220 square meters. It was supposed to provide a direct broadband 5G connection from space to ordinary smartphones (Direct-to-Device technology).
Sunday’s third flight of the 98-meter-tall New Glenn rocket was supposed to demonstrate its reliability when reused in competition with the Falcon 9 rocket developed by another billionaire Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. Blue Origin said last November that it would build a larger, more powerful variant of its New Glenn rocket called the New Glenn 9×4.
The New Glenn rocket went straight into space on its first flight in January 2025. On its second flight, about ten months later, it carried two orbiters from the American space agency NASA into space.
