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Blue Origin\u2019s new mega-rocket, New Glenn, is no longer grounded. The company said Friday that the Federal Aviation Administration has cleared the rocket to fly again after the upper stage failed to deliver a commercial payload during an April launch.<\/p>\n
Blue Origin didn\u2019t offer much detail, but said in a post<\/a> on X that the New Glenn upper stage \u201cexperienced an off-nominal thermal condition\u201d that caused one of the three rocket engines to produce lower-than-expected thrust. As a result, the AST SpaceMobile satellite that Blue Origin was supposed to put into orbit instead burned up in Earth\u2019s atmosphere instead. (AST SpaceMobile said it had insurance coverage that covered the cost of the lost satellite.) Jeff Bezos\u2019s spaceflight company submitted a report to the FAA and took \u201ccorrective measures,\u201d but did not detail what those measures were.<\/p>\n The mishap came on what was New Glenn\u2019s third-ever flight, which otherwise went off without a problem. The company successfully re-used the New Glenn<\/a> booster stage for the first time ever and landed it for a second time on a drone ship in the ocean.<\/p>\n The clearance means Blue Origin can now get back to its aggressive schedule for New Glenn this year. The company has said it plans to launch the rocket as many as 12 times by the end of 2026, though it\u2019s unclear how much of an effect the one-month grounding has had on those ambitions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n