Blue Origin reused its New Glenn rocket for the first time on April 19, 2026, landing the first stage booster successfully after carrying AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 satellite to orbit. Jeff Bezos now has a operationally reusable launch vehicle. The mission was New Glenn's third flight overall.
The win stops there. New Glenn's second stage deposited BlueBird 7 into a lower orbit than planned, making the satellite functionally useless. AST SpaceMobile confirmed the satellite powered on after separation but could not reach its intended altitude. The company is still building out its space-based cellular broadband constellation, and this setback removes one node from that network.
The full story at The Verge breaks down what the second stage failure means for AST SpaceMobile's timeline, what a reusable New Glenn actually unlocks for Blue Origin commercially, and whether the booster landing changes the competitive calculus against SpaceX's Falcon 9. The booster success and the payload failure together tell a more complicated story than either headline alone.
[READ ORIGINAL →]