Blue Origin's 'New Glenn' Rocket Suffers Satellite Deployment Failure Despite Booster Recovery
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket successfully landed its reusable booster on its third launch, but the AST SpaceMobile communication satellite was not placed into the correct orbit and will be deorbited.
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- 📰 Published: April 20, 2026 at 15:54
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TAIPEI, April 19 (Reuters) - Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's space company Blue Origin successfully landed the booster of its New Glenn rocket on Friday, but the AST SpaceMobile communication satellite it carried failed to reach the correct orbit.
The launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 7:25 a.m. ET (1925 Taiwan time) marked the third flight for the 29-story New Glenn rocket, a critical step in proving its reliability and recovering capabilities to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX.
The reusable booster, nicknamed "Never Tell Me the Odds," landed about 10 minutes after liftoff.
However, AST SpaceMobile said in a statement that the upper stage of the rocket placed its BlueBird 7 satellite into an orbit lower than planned.
"Although the satellite has separated from the launch vehicle and successfully activated, it will be deorbited as it is too low to maintain operations with its onboard propulsion technology," AST said.
AST's satellites are designed to connect directly with smartphones as part of a plan to build a space-based mobile broadband network, similar to Amazon's Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite initiative or SpaceX's Starlink.
This mission was crucial for Blue Origin to demonstrate that its heavy-lift rocket is capable of reliably delivering payloads to orbit, a key differentiator against SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.
The booster's name is a reference to a line from "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back."
The launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 7:25 a.m. ET (1925 Taiwan time) marked the third flight for the 29-story New Glenn rocket, a critical step in proving its reliability and recovering capabilities to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX.
The reusable booster, nicknamed "Never Tell Me the Odds," landed about 10 minutes after liftoff.
However, AST SpaceMobile said in a statement that the upper stage of the rocket placed its BlueBird 7 satellite into an orbit lower than planned.
"Although the satellite has separated from the launch vehicle and successfully activated, it will be deorbited as it is too low to maintain operations with its onboard propulsion technology," AST said.
AST's satellites are designed to connect directly with smartphones as part of a plan to build a space-based mobile broadband network, similar to Amazon's Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite initiative or SpaceX's Starlink.
This mission was crucial for Blue Origin to demonstrate that its heavy-lift rocket is capable of reliably delivering payloads to orbit, a key differentiator against SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.
The booster's name is a reference to a line from "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back."