Blue Origin Lands a New Glenn Booster for the Second Time, But the Upper Stage Leaves AST's Satellite in the Wrong Orbit
The first reuse of a New Glenn first stage succeeded on NG-3's Sunday morning launch from Cape Canaveral, making Blue Origin only the second company to re-fly an orbital-class booster. AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 satellite separated and powered on but was placed in what Blue Origin called an "off-nominal orbit."
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36 at 7:25 a.m. EDT on Sunday, April 19, carrying AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 satellite toward low Earth orbit. About nine minutes after liftoff, the first-stage booster — the same "Never Tell Me The Odds" vehicle that flew NG-2 in November 2025 — touched down on the drone ship Jacklyn for the second time, the first reuse of a New Glenn first stage and only the second time any company has recovered the same orbital-class booster twice.
SpaceX remains the only other company to have done it. The company's first Falcon 9 reflight, using booster B1021, took place on March 30, 2017, roughly 11 months after the booster's first mission. Blue Origin turned its booster around in about five months.
That is where the clean part of the story ends.
The upper stage
Approximately two hours after launch, Blue Origin posted on X that it had "confirmed payload separation" and that "AST SpaceMobile has confirmed the satellite has powered on." The company added: "The payload was placed into an off-nominal orbit. We are currently assessing and will update when we have more detailed information."
According to the company's own pre-launch timeline, New Glenn's second stage was supposed to perform a second burn roughly an hour after liftoff to place BlueBird 7 in its target orbit. Blue Origin has not said publicly whether that burn occurred, whether it underperformed, or whether a different second-stage anomaly was responsible for the off-nominal orbit. AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 is a Block 2 direct-to-cell satellite with a 2,400-square-foot antenna, part of a constellation the company is assembling to provide space-based cellular broadband service.
Equity markets reacted to the mixed outcome. AST SpaceMobile (Nasdaq: ASTS) traded at $85.53, down 5.95% on the day as of the most recent reading on the company's investor relations page.
The booster
Before the upper-stage anomaly, Blue Origin announced the successful landing in celebratory terms: "BOOSTER TOUCHDOWN! 'Never Tell Me The Odds' has done it again!" The company had replaced all seven BE-4 engines on the first stage before reflight and added a thermal protection system on one of the engine nozzles, according to a pre-launch post from CEO Dave Limp. The original engines flown on NG-2 are expected to be refurbished and used on later missions.
Blue Origin has said it is designing its boosters to support up to 25 flights each. AST SpaceMobile CEO Abel Avellan told analysts in March that the company expects New Glenn to be reused "every 30 days" across 2026 to support its deployment cadence — a tempo that depends on both booster recovery and a reliable upper stage.
What comes next
The FAA has not yet indicated whether a mishap investigation will be opened. After NG-1 in January 2025, when the booster was lost on descent, the FAA opened an investigation that closed two months later and returned the vehicle to flight. A similar review process on the upper stage is possible depending on what Blue Origin's internal assessment finds.
NG-3 does not appear to affect the booster recovery side of the program, which is the feature SpaceX's Falcon 9 spent years establishing before it reshaped the launch market. The question is whether the upper stage can be made reliable enough to sustain the cadence AST and other customers are counting on.