Blue Origin’s reusable booster lands successfully

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin said its New Glenn rocket booster touched down after launch, marking the first landing of a reused booster.

The rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Sunday morning, and the booster landing occurred 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 name of the booster is a reference to the Han Solo line from the movie Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

The new Glenn is designed for the upper end of the commercial launch market, with a seven-meter 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 Block 2 constellation.

The satellite has 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 mobile phone 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.