New Glenn upper‑stage mishap

Blue Origin’s New Glenn is grounded after its upper stage missed orbit on April 19, leaving AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite doomed. (techcrunch.com) The Federal Aviation Administration said New Glenn 3 “experienced a mishap during the second-stage flight sequence” after launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The agency said Blue Origin must investigate and win approval of corrective actions before the rocket can fly again. (orlandosentinel.com) AST SpaceMobile said BlueBird 7 separated from the rocket and powered on, but the upper stage placed it in an orbit “lower than planned.” The company said the altitude was too low “to sustain operations,” so the satellite will be deorbited and burned up in the atmosphere. (techcrunch.com) A rocket’s upper stage is the part that does the final precision work in space, like a delivery van making the last stop after the highway drive. New Glenn’s first stage did its job well enough to launch and land, but the upper stage error still cost the mission. (spacenews.com) That split result matters for Blue Origin because New Glenn is supposed to be the company’s heavy-lift workhorse for commercial, military, and NASA missions. NASA has already flown its ESCAPADE Mars mission on New Glenn, and the agency now faces questions about schedule risk while the Federal Aviation Administration review is underway. (blueorigin.com) (techcrunch.com) The flight also had a milestone before it went wrong: Blue Origin reused a New Glenn booster for the first time and recovered it again on the droneship Jacklyn. That put a visible win beside a mission-ending loss. (usatoday.com) BlueBird 7 was part of AST SpaceMobile’s plan to build a direct-to-smartphone broadband network from low Earth orbit. AST says its next-generation BlueBird satellites use very large phased-array antennas to connect with ordinary mobile phones, not specialized satellite handsets. (ast-science.com) Reuters reported the payload was a U.S. Space Force satellite, while multiple space and technology outlets identified it as AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7; AST’s own statement confirms BlueBird 7 was the spacecraft on board. The Federal Aviation Administration said it notified NASA, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the U.S. Space Force after classifying the flight as a mishap. (techcrunch.com) (orlandosentinel.com) For now, Blue Origin has a booster landing it can point to and a grounded rocket it cannot relaunch. The next New Glenn flight waits on an investigation into why the stage that mattered most in orbit came up short. (apnews.com)