Blue Origin marks first landing of reused New Glenn rocket booster, ratcheting up SpaceX rivalry
April 19 (Reuters) – Jeff BezosBlue Origin on Sunday said its New Glenn rocket booster touched down after launch, marking the first landing of a reused booster.
The rocket, which had a launch window of 6:45 a.m. to 12:19 a.m. ET on Sunday, took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, around 7:25 a.m. ET (1125 GMT), with the booster landing about 10 minutes later.
New Glenn carried AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite into low Earth orbit in a flight that marked a pivotal step for the company.
The mission was key to demonstrating that New Glenn, a 29-story heavy-lift rocket, “has reliable booster reuse capability and can compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.”
The rocket’s booster, called “Never Tell Me Odds,” previously flew and was recovered on the NG-2 mission in November, setting up this week’s milestone attempt.
The booster’s name is a reference to the Han Solo line from the movie “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.”
After a series of delays earlier this month, the mission comes at a time of increased activity in the space sector, including the successful NASA Artemis II moon mission that took humans farther from Earth than previously traveled.
Blue Origin said in November that it would produce a larger and more powerful version of the New Glenn rocket called New Glenn 9×4.
AST SATELLITE TEAM
The new Glenn is designed for the upper end of the commercial launch market, with a seven-meter (23-foot) nose cone that allows it to carry larger payloads, including multiple satellites in a single mission.
BlueBird 7, carried by AST SpaceMobile into NG-3 orbit, is the second satellite in the next-generation Blok 2 constellation. The satellite features what the company describes as the largest commercial communications array deployed in low Earth orbit.
Designed to connect directly to smartphones, the satellite is part of an effort to create a space-based cellular broadband network similar to Amazon’s Leo or SpaceX’s Starlink.
AST SpaceMobile aims for a constellation of 45 to 60 such satellites by the end of 2026.
(Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Jane Merriman and Bill Berkrot)
