Green Origin‘s New Glenn Mission 3 (NG-3) was supposed to mark another step forward in the company’s long-awaited entry into the commercial space launch market. Instead, the third heavy-lift rocket flight ended up with a partial failure and is, for now, fully grounded. The Federal Aviation Administration has suspended the new Glenn vehicle from future missions following a “mistake” during its launch Sunday at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida pending an investigation into the incident.
The goal was not a total loss. New Glenn’s reusable first stage booster performed as expected and landed successfully. However, the upper class failed in the mission’s most important mission: to deliver its payload to the correct orbit.
That payload (the BlueBird 7 communications satellite for AST SpaceMobile, Blue Origin’s first commercial launch for a customer) was to be deployed on an orbit of approximately 285 miles. Instead, it only reached 95 miles — too low for the satellite’s boosters to keep it in orbit. BlueBird 7 will now be ejected and destroyed upon re-entry.
Watch this: Blue Origin New Glenn Mission NG-3: Everything That Happened in 8 Minutes
The problem seems to go back to the upper stage of the rocket. In a statement on Monday, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said “one of BE-3U’s engines did not produce enough power” during its second burn, a critical phase needed to raise and rotate the orbiter. Without it, the rocket had no power to get the satellite where it needed to go.
The consequences of that failure begin with the FAA classifying the event as an “error,” which sounds innocuous, but automatically triggers a mandatory grounding of the New Glenn vehicle while a full safety review is conducted. Blue Origin will lead an investigation under the direction of the FAA, working to identify the root cause and corrective actions.
Until the agency determines that the issue does not pose a threat to public safety, the New Glenn will not fly again. How long that process takes is uncertain and can vary widely. The last time the New Glenn was grounded, following a failed landing on its first mission, it was unable to fly again for months.
If the rocket is stable, more collisions will be applied to Blue Origin’s 2026 and 2027 plans. In the short term, the ripples could slow down Amazon’s already-delayed shipments satellite Broadband networkwhich would depend in part on New Glenn. In addition, the company Blue Moon MK1 lander mission’s target it may also be affected by how long New Glenn stays on the sidelines.
And then there’s the famous song. This was New Glenn’s first payload mission for a commercial customer, which would be a milestone for the rocket program. Although AST SpaceMobile expects that the cost of the satellite will be “covered under the company’s insurance policy,” this is certainly a zero in the face of Blue Origin and an opportunity for competitors such as SpaceX to exploit.
AST SpaceMobile said in a statement issued Sunday evening that it expects to continue its plans to expand its satellite network “with orbital launches every two to two months on average through 2026,” supported by agreements with multiple launch providers.
