Blue Origin New Glenn's Booster Reuse Successful, But Upper Stage Saw Failure in Recent Launch

Blue Origin recently undertook New Glenn's third mission with its heavy-lift rocket, but it saw mixed success in the launching and testing of the spacecraft as half of it experienced setbacks.

The first part of the mission went well as the first-stage, or "lower stage" booster rocket, fulfilled its role and carried the head, but the upper stage did not achieve the same success.

Blue Origin New Glenn: Booster Reuse Successful

The first part of Blue Origin's recent New Glenn mission (NG-3) was successful, particularly as the company confirmed that the heavy-lift rocket had already lifted off from the ground and was on its way to its orbital delivery.

The company also performed its take on a main engine cut-off and stage separation, which saw the booster split from the main New Glenn rocket.

Those were not the only successes that Blue Origin saw during their NG-3 mission, particularly as the company was triumphant in their landing of the booster rocket called "Never Tell Me The Odds."

If this sounded familiar, it is because this rocket was the same booster they used in the second New Glenn mission, with Blue Origin co-founder Jeff Bezos showing off the landing of this reused first stage booster on a ship.

Upper Stage Failure Sets Back Blue Origin

However, it was not an entirely successful undertaking as Blue Origin saw an anomaly during the second stage's mission, which carried AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 satellite to orbit.

It was revealed by Blue Origin on X that it released the payload into an "off-nominal orbit," which means that it was not on the target orbit.

According to ArsTechnica, this payload separation resulted in problems, according to AST SpaceMobile. First, the company said that its orbital position was "too low to sustain operations," and then AST SpaceMobile later said that they will have to de-orbit the satellite entirely.

As for the New Glenn's second stage, the report said that orbital tracking data from the US Space Force shared that the rocket was in a lower orbit than expected and would bring a "destructive reentry within hours or days."

Originally published on Tech Times