Blue Origin Reuses New Glenn Booster, but Upper-Stage Problem Leaves AST SpaceMobile Satellite in Off-Nominal Orbit

Blue Origin’s third New Glenn launch left AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 communications satellite in an off-nominal orbit Sunday after an apparent upper-stage problem, a setback for the company’s heavy-lift rocket even though the spacecraft separated from the launcher.

Blue Origin said it confirmed payload separation and that AST SpaceMobile confirmed the satellite had powered on. At the same time, the company said the payload had been placed into an off-nominal orbit and that it was assessing the situation and would provide updates. Contemporary reporting indicates the issue appears tied to New Glenn’s second stage, but Blue Origin has not publicly identified a root cause.

The NG-3 mission lifted off April 19 at 7:25 a.m. EDT from Florida, carrying AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7. AST describes the spacecraft as a Block 2 communications satellite for its planned direct-to-smartphone service.

The flight was also a milestone of sorts for Blue Origin: It was the first time the company reused a previously flown New Glenn first-stage booster. That booster landed successfully after stage separation, making the mission a split result — a successful recovery on the rocket’s reusable lower stage, but a problem delivering the payload to its intended orbit.

Preflight mission materials showed New Glenn’s upper stage was supposed to perform a second burn about an hour after liftoff to reach the planned injection orbit. It is not yet clear whether that burn happened as planned. Blue Origin has said only that the satellite ended up in an off-nominal orbit, meaning the rocket did not place it into its planned orbital parameters.

That matters because satellites can sometimes use their own onboard propulsion to raise or reshape an orbit after launch, but doing so can consume fuel that would otherwise be available for routine operations and station-keeping, potentially shortening the spacecraft’s useful life. It is not yet known how serious BlueBird 7’s orbit error is or whether it can be fully corrected.

The mission was New Glenn’s third orbital flight. The rocket first reached orbit on its maiden mission in January 2025, and its second flight in November 2025 launched NASA’s ESCAPADE probes and also recovered the booster. That gives Blue Origin two earlier orbital successes, but the apparent upper-stage anomaly on NG-3 still makes this an important early reliability test for a rocket the company is marketing for commercial, civil and government launches.