Blue Origin’s reusable New Glenn rocket lands successfully, but payload delivery fails

Blue Origin’s New Glenn successfully landed its first stage on a drone ship, showing progress on booster recovery and reuse.

But the upper stage failed to insert AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 into its intended orbit, leaving the satellite in too low an orbit for normal operations.

AST said BlueBird 7 will likely be deorbited and is expected to be covered by insurance.

The FAA has grounded New Glenn pending an investigation, raising reliability concerns for commercial customers and delaying program momentum.