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Jeff Bezos\u2019 space company Blue Origin successfully re-used one of its New Glenn rockets for the first time ever<\/a> on Sunday, but the company failed at its primary mission: delivering a communications satellite to orbit for customer AST SpaceMobile.<\/p>\n AST SpaceMobile issued a statement Sunday afternoon that the upper stage of the New Glenn rocket placed BlueBird 7 satellite into an orbit that was \u201clower than planned.\u201d The satellite successfully separated from the rocket and powered on, the company said, but the altitude is too low \u201cto sustain operations\u201d and will now have to be de-orbited \u2014 left to burn up in the atmosphere of Earth.<\/p>\n The cost of the loss of the satellite is covered by AST SpaceMobile\u2019s insurance policy, according the company, and there are successive BlueBird satellites that will be completed in around a month. AST SpaceMobile has contracts with more than just Blue Origin, and the company said it expects to be able to launch 45 more to space by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n But this represents the first major failure for Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn program, which only made its first flight in January 2025 after more than a decade in development. This was the second mission where New Glenn carried a customer payload to space, after launching twin spacecraft bound for Mars on behalf of NASA last November. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n The apparent failure of New Glenn\u2019s second stage could have wider implications beyond Blue Origin\u2019s near-term commercial ambitions. The company is pushing hard to become one of the main launch providers for NASA\u2019s Artemis missions to the moon and beyond. The space agency \u2014 and the Trump administration \u2014 has put pressure on Blue Origin and SpaceX to be able to put landers on the moon by the end of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term, before advancing to returning humans to the lunar surface.<\/p>\n Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp\u00a0has even said<\/a>\u00a0his company \u201cwill move heaven and Earth\u201d to help NASA get back to the moon faster.<\/p>\n Blue Origin recently completed testing its first version of its own lunar lander, which the company is expected to try and launch at some point this year (without any crew). Blue Origin had suggested last year that it was considering launching this lander on New Glenn\u2019s third mission, but ultimately decided to launch the AST SpaceMobile satellite instead<\/a>.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA<\/span> The third New Glenn launch seemed to start just fine on Sunday, with the the mega-rocket lifting off at 7:35 a.m. local time from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was the first time Blue Origin re-used a previously-flown New Glenn booster \u2014 the same one that flew during New Glenn\u2019s second mission. Roughly 10 minutes after liftoff, the booster came back down and landed on a drone ship in the ocean, just like it had last November. Jeff Bezos even shared drone footage<\/a> of the booster\u2019s landing on X, the social media site owned by his rival Elon Musk. (Musk offered congratulations<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n