After suffering an embarrassing setback with the third launch of the New Glenn rocket, Blue Origin is hoping to get back on track with its partially reusable vehicle.<\/p>\n
Blue Origin completed an investigation into the anomaly that caused New Glenn to place its payload in a lower orbit than planned<\/a>. During the flight on April 19, the rocket\u2019s second stage suffered a malfunction prior to its engine burn and one of the engines failed to achieve enough thrust to reach its target orbit.<\/p>\n The Federal Aviation Administration approved the company\u2019s report on the NG-3 mission, and cleared New Glenn for liftoff, Blue Origin announced<\/a>. New Glenn had been grounded since its failed delivery, putting the rocket\u2019s busy launch schedule at risk.<\/p>\n Third time was not the charm <\/p>\n For its third mission, New Glenn used the same booster that\u00a0launched NASA\u2019s twin ESCAPADE Mars probes<\/a> on November 13, 2025. Blue Origin refurbished the booster, named \u201cNever Tell Me The Odds,\u201d for the first re-flight of a New Glenn first stage as a mark of the rocket\u2019s reusability.<\/p>\n Shortly after launch, the booster touched down on a landing platform called Jacklyn in the Atlantic Ocean. The successful touchdown marked a huge achievement for the company, with the rocket\u2019s reusability being a key factor to ramping up its launch cadence.<\/p>\n The booster\u2019s win was overshadowed by the major flop that followed. New Glenn was carrying AST SpaceMobile\u2019s BlueBird 7 satellite, part of a constellation of massive satellites designed to provide direct connectivity to smartphones. About an hour after the scheduled payload separation, Blue Origin revealed<\/a>\u00a0that the satellite was placed in an \u201coff-nominal\u201d orbit.<\/p>\n Following stage separation, the rocket\u2019s upper stage was expected to perform two burns to place the satellite in an orbit approximately 285 miles (460 kilometers) above the Earth. AST SpaceMobile later confirmed that while the satellite separated from the rocket and powered on, its \u201caltitude is too low to sustain operations with its on-board thruster technology and will [be] de-orbited,\u201d the company wrote in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cleared for liftoff <\/p>\n The upper stage mishap prompted the FAA to ground the rocket, ordering Blue Origin to carry out an investigation into the anomaly.<\/p>\n Blue Origin\u2019s report pinpointed the root cause of the recent malfunction as a cryogenic leak that froze a hydraulic line, which led to the thrust anomaly during the second-stage engine burn. The company added that corrective measures have been implemented to prevent a similar anomaly from taking place during upcoming launches.<\/p>\n