Blue Origin’s new mega rocket, New Glenn, is no longer on the ground. The company said Friday that the Federal Aviation Administration cleared the rocket to fly again after the upper stage failed to deliver a commercial payload during a launch in April.
Blue Origin did not offer many details, but said in a post in X that New Glenn’s upper stage “experienced an abnormal thermal condition” that caused one of the rocket’s three engines to produce less thrust than expected. As a result, the AST SpaceMobile satellite that Blue Origin was supposed to launch into orbit burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. (AST SpaceMobile said it had insurance coverage covering the cost of the lost satellite.) Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company submitted a report to the FAA and took “corrective action,” but did not detail what those actions were.
The mishap occurred on what was New Glenn’s third flight, which otherwise went smoothly. The company successfully repurposed the New Glenn booster stage for the first time and landed it for the second time on an unmanned ship in the ocean.
The authorization means Blue Origin can now return to its aggressive schedule for New Glenn this year. The company has said it plans to launch the rocket up to 12 times by the end of 2026, although it is unclear what effect the month-long grounding has had on those ambitions.
