Blue Origin’s new mega-rocket, New Glenn, is no longer grounded. The Federal Aviation Administration has cleared the rocket to fly again after it failed to deliver commercial payload to the upper stage during its launch in April, the company said Friday.
However, Blue Origin did not provide further details said in a post X that the New Glenn upper stage “experienced an off-nominal thermal condition” which caused one of the three rocket engines to produce less thrust than expected. As a result, the AST Spacemobile satellite that Blue Origin was supposed to put into orbit burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere. (AST Spacemobile said it has insurance coverage that covers the cost of the lost satellite.) Jeff Bezos’s spaceflight company submitted a report to the FAA and took “corrective measures,” but did not say what those measures were.
The accident occurred on New Glenn’s third flight ever, which otherwise took off without any problems. company New Glen successfully reused For the first time the booster stage and for the second time it was landed on a drone ship in the sea.
The approval means Blue Origin can now return to its aggressive program for New Glen this year. The company has said it plans to launch the rocket 12 times by the end of 2026, though it’s unclear how much the month-long grounding has affected those ambitions.
