Blue Origin notched a milestone and a misfire on the same flight Sunday. The company’s New Glenn rocket, on only its third mission and first commercial outing, lifted off cleanly from Cape Canaveral and successfully landed its massive booster back on Earth—an achievement matched only by Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the orbital rocket category. But the payload didn’t end up where it was supposed to, the Wall Street Journal reports. Blue Origin said on X that the AST SpaceMobile satellite it was carrying was released into an “off-nominal orbit.” AST later said the spacecraft’s altitude is too low for it to function as planned and it will be deorbited, with losses expected to be covered by insurance.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said Monday that one of the upper stage engines apparently failed to produce enough thrust to reach the target orbit, the AP reports. “While we are pleased with the nominal booster recovery, we clearly didn’t deliver the mission our customer wanted, and our team expects,” Limp said on X. The AP notes that it’s not clear when the upper stage and the doomed satellite will plunge back to Earth.
The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered an investigation, which will need to be completed before Blue Origin can resume New Glenn flights, reports Reuters. The mishap comes as Jeff Bezos’ company is trying to ramp up New Glenn launches to chip away at SpaceX’s dominance and clear a growing backlog, the Journal reports.
