Jeff Bezos’s private rocket firm Blue Origin suffered a setback on Sunday after its New Glenn rocket failed to deliver a satellite to orbit.
Sunday’s launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida was the third mission involving a New Glenn rocket, which is being developed to launch Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander for Nasa’s Artemis IV mission in 2028.
The main objective was to deliver a massive Bluebird 7 satellite, built by AST SpaceMobile, into orbit, however the payload was lost shortly after separating from New Glenn’s upper stage.
“While the satellite separated from the launch vehicle and powered on, the altitude is too low to sustain operations with its on-board thruster technology and will be deorbited,” AST SpaceMobile said in a statement.
The BlueBird 7 satellite was designed to deliver a direct-to-smartphone broadband network, with an initial service rollout originally planned for this year.
The mission saw other successes, most notably the safe return of New Glenn’s first-stage booster rocket, which had previously launched and landed during a previous mission last November.
The New Glenn booster rocket, dubbed ‘Never Tell Me The Odds’, proved its ability to compete with the reusability of SpaceX’s Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Starship rocket.
SpaceX boss Elon Musk congratulated Bezos on the achievement after the Blue Origin boss shared a video of the booster rocket succesfully landing on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
Musk also shared a video showing a Falcon 9 rocket landing on a drone ship, which marked the 600th time that SpaceX has successfully returned a booster rocket back to Earth.
The company is currently preparing for the 12th test flight of its Starship rocket, which is expected to launch from the firm’s Starbase facility in Texas at some point in May.
Blue Origin officials said during a live stream of Sunday’s launch that it plans to use New Glenn to launch its Mark 1 Blue Moon lander on an uncrewed mission to the Moon in a few months.
It is not clear whether the latest setback will impact this timeline. The Independent has reached out to Blue Origin for comment.
