Jeff Bezos’ rocket company ,Blue Origin has grounded its New Glenn rocket after a failed weekend mission that placed a satellite into the wrong orbit, the company said, blaming a malfunctioning engine.
Launch operations of the heavy-lift rocket will remain suspended until Blue Origin and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) complete a joint investigation into the incident.
The rocket lifted off on Sunday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. While the reusable first-stage booster performed successfully and landed on an ocean barge several minutes into flight, the upper stage failed to deliver the payload into the required high orbit.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said preliminary analysis suggests one of the upper-stage engines did not generate sufficient thrust, leading to the failure.
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The satellite onboard was intended to join AST SpaceMobile’s orbital constellation designed to enable direct satellite-to-smartphone connectivity. However, the U.S. Space Force confirmed that both the upper stage and the satellite reentered Earth’s atmosphere on Monday. No further details were provided.
This was only the third flight of New Glenn, Blue Origin’s large orbital launch vehicle. NASA is relying on the rocket for future Artemis program missions, including launching Blue Moon lunar landers. Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Starship is also competing to land astronauts on the Moon as early as 2028.
Standing more than 320 feet (98 meters) tall, New Glenn is named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth in 1962.