Blue Origin cleared to fly New Glenn mega-rocket after April mishap
Jeff Bezos' rocket company confirmed an engine failure led to the loss of an AST SpaceMobile satellite last month, but offered little detail.
Blue Origin’s latest mega-rocket, latest Glenn, is no longer grounded. The firm 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.
Blue Origin didn’t offer much detail but said in a post on X that the latest Glenn upper stage “experienced an off-nominal thermal condition” 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’s atmosphere. (AST SpaceMobile said it had insurance coverage that covered the cost of the lost satellite.) Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight firm submitted a report to the FAA and took “corrective measures,” but did not detail what those measures were.
The mishap came on what was latest Glenn’s third-ever flight, which otherwise went off without a problem. The firm successfully reused the latest Glenn booster stage for the first time ever and landed it for a second time on a drone ship in the ocean.
The clearance means Blue Origin can now get back to its aggressive schedule for latest Glenn this year. The firm has said it plans to launch the rocket as many as 12 times by the end of 2026, though it’s unclear how much of an effect the one-month grounding has had on those ambitions.
