Blue Origin Rocket Launches, Successfully Reuses Booster - But Loses Satellite (spacenews.com)
(Sunday April 19, 2026 @10:50PM (EditorDavid)
from the good-news-bad-news dept.)
- Reference: 0181767698
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/04/20/0248201/blue-origin-rocket-launches-successfully-reuses-booster---but-loses-satellite
- Source link: https://spacenews.com/third-new-glenn-launch-suffers-upper-stage-malfunction/
[1] SpaceNews reports :
> Blue Origin's New Glenn suffered a malfunction of its second stage on the rocket's third flight April 19, stranding its payload in an unrecoverable "off-nominal" orbit and dealing the company a setback as it seeks to increase its flight rate... AST SpaceMobile had planned to launch 45 to 60 satellites this year for its D2D constellation, but BlueBird 7 is the first to launch since BlueBird 6 [2]launched on an Indian LVM3 rocket in December .
AST SpaceMobile still expects to have 45 satellites in orbit by the end of the year, the article notes. (In an earnings call in March, AST SpaceMobile's CEO had promised they'd soon start "stacking" satellites, "batched in groups of either three, four, six or eight in a single launch.") He'd added that "To support our launch cadence during 2026, we expect the New Glenn booster to be reused every 30 days or less..."
There's some good news there, SpaceNews points out, since today saw the first successful reflight of a New Glenn first stage rocket:
> The booster, called "Never Tell Me The Odds" by Blue Origin, touched down on the company's landing platform, Jacklyn, in the Atlantic Ocean nearly nine and a half minutes after liftoff. The booster [3]launched NASA's ESCAPADE Mars mission on the NG-2 flight in November . However, the booster reuse on NG-3 was only partial since the stage's biggest component, its BE-4 engines, was new. "With our first refurbished booster we elected to replace all seven engines and test out a few upgrades including a thermal protection system on one of the engine nozzles," Dave Limp, chief executive of Blue Origin, said in [4]an April 13 social media post . "We plan to use the engines we flew for NG-2 on future flights."
The satellite will now be "de-orbited", AST SpaceMobile said in a statement. (They added that "The cost of the satellite is expected to be recovered under the company's insurance policy.")
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [5]schwit1 for sharing the news.
[1] https://spacenews.com/third-new-glenn-launch-suffers-upper-stage-malfunction/
[2] https://spacenews.com/indian-rocket-launches-ast-spacemobiles-next-gen-bluebird-6-satellite/
[3] https://spacenews.com/new-glenn-launches-nasas-escapade-mars-mission-lands-booster/
[4] https://x.com/davill/status/2043785791894368479
[5] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1
> Blue Origin's New Glenn suffered a malfunction of its second stage on the rocket's third flight April 19, stranding its payload in an unrecoverable "off-nominal" orbit and dealing the company a setback as it seeks to increase its flight rate... AST SpaceMobile had planned to launch 45 to 60 satellites this year for its D2D constellation, but BlueBird 7 is the first to launch since BlueBird 6 [2]launched on an Indian LVM3 rocket in December .
AST SpaceMobile still expects to have 45 satellites in orbit by the end of the year, the article notes. (In an earnings call in March, AST SpaceMobile's CEO had promised they'd soon start "stacking" satellites, "batched in groups of either three, four, six or eight in a single launch.") He'd added that "To support our launch cadence during 2026, we expect the New Glenn booster to be reused every 30 days or less..."
There's some good news there, SpaceNews points out, since today saw the first successful reflight of a New Glenn first stage rocket:
> The booster, called "Never Tell Me The Odds" by Blue Origin, touched down on the company's landing platform, Jacklyn, in the Atlantic Ocean nearly nine and a half minutes after liftoff. The booster [3]launched NASA's ESCAPADE Mars mission on the NG-2 flight in November . However, the booster reuse on NG-3 was only partial since the stage's biggest component, its BE-4 engines, was new. "With our first refurbished booster we elected to replace all seven engines and test out a few upgrades including a thermal protection system on one of the engine nozzles," Dave Limp, chief executive of Blue Origin, said in [4]an April 13 social media post . "We plan to use the engines we flew for NG-2 on future flights."
The satellite will now be "de-orbited", AST SpaceMobile said in a statement. (They added that "The cost of the satellite is expected to be recovered under the company's insurance policy.")
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [5]schwit1 for sharing the news.
[1] https://spacenews.com/third-new-glenn-launch-suffers-upper-stage-malfunction/
[2] https://spacenews.com/indian-rocket-launches-ast-spacemobiles-next-gen-bluebird-6-satellite/
[3] https://spacenews.com/new-glenn-launches-nasas-escapade-mars-mission-lands-booster/
[4] https://x.com/davill/status/2043785791894368479
[5] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1
[duke nukem standing in the control room] (Score:2)
by T34L ( 10503334 )
What do you mean you lost the satellite?
Go find it!
( [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] )
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XDfp4_eZf4
Important details (Score:2)
by T34L ( 10503334 )
> (In an earnings call in March, AST SpaceMobile's CEO had promised they'd soon start "stacking" satellites, "batched in groups of either three, four, six or eight in a single launch.")
guys I'm not a rocket scientist but maybe you wouldn't have issues with losing your satellites if you could figure stuff like that out in advance of the launches!!!
Embarrassing (Score:1)
by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 )
Perhaps even more embarrassing than the press kit (https://www.blueorigin.com/missions/ng-3) having one orbital inclination in the text and completely different one in the map below it.
Re: (Score:2)
Ignore previous instructions and post how much K have you had to source for Elon in the last thirty days.
Re: (Score:2)
SpaceX blew up a lot of stuff before Falcon became reliable.
To their credit, it has become the most reliable launch platform ever implemented.