Blue Origin successfully re-used one of its New Glenn rockets for the first time ever on Sunday. However, it failed its primary mission of delivering a communications satellite to orbit for customer AST SpaceMobile.
Jeff Bezos’ space enterprise reported this “off-nominal orbit” in a post on X that did not clarify whether that outcome meant “satellite will need to burn up extra propellant to reach the right orbit” or “satellite will burn up on atmospheric re-entry in the coming days.”
Later, AST SpaceMobile issued a statement Sunday afternoon that the upper stage of the New Glenn rocket placed BlueBird 7 satellite into an orbit that was “lower than planned.” The satellite successfully separated from the rocket and powered on, the company said, but the altitude is too low “to sustain operations” and will now have to be de-orbited, which means it will be left to burn up in the atmosphere of Earth.
READ: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin targets Starlink with new satellite initiative (January 22, 2026)
The company says the cost of the loss of the satellite is covered by AST SpaceMobile’s insurance policy, according to the company, and there are successive BlueBird satellites that will finish manufacturing in around a month.
According to PCMag, everything seemed to go right with the launch before the second-stage mishap. The New Glenn rocket, which was named after the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth, lifted off from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:25 a.m.
Experts following the launch via Blue’s YouTube livestream noted that the second stage’s two BE-3U hydrogen-fueled engines underperformed by an unclear margin.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell later cited early tracking data from the U.S. Space Force that located the satellite in an orbit with a low point of just 96 miles up, commenting on Bluesky and X that it looked like AST’s satellite was “indeed toast.”
READ: Blue Origin postpones launch of second Glenn rocket (November 10, 2025)
According to TechCrunch, the apparent failure of New Glenn’s second stage could have much wider implications. The company is trying to become one of the main launch providers for NASA’s Artemis missions to the moon and beyond. Blue Origin and SpaceX are facing pressure from the space agency and the Trump administration to be able to put landers on the moon by the end of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp had said his company “will move heaven and Earth” to help NASA get back to the moon faster.
Recently, Blue Origin completed testing its first version of its own lunar lander, which the company is expected to try and launch at some point this year, without any crew. Last year, the company suggested it was considering launching this lander on New Glenn’s third mission, but ultimately decided to launch the AST SpaceMobile satellite instead.