Blue Origin is off the sidelines. The FAA cleared their New Glenn mega-rocket for flight on Friday. This follows an embarrassing upper stage failure last month.
What actually went wrong? Blue Origin didn’t spill many secrets. A post on X explained the upper stage hit an off-nominal thermal issue. One engine—just one of three—didn’t push hard enough.
The result? An AST SpaceMobile satellite missed its orbit entirely. It burned up in the atmosphere. Lost to the sky. Fortunately for the client, insurance covered the tab. Jeff Bezos’ company told regulators they filed a report and fixed the issue. They didn’t specify exactly how, of course.
Corrective measures were taken. Details remain vague.
It’s almost annoying how smooth everything else went. This was only New Glenn’s third flight. The booster stage performed brilliantly. It actually made history. First-time reuse of that specific hardware. They even landed it back on a drone ship. Second successful landing in the book.
The FAA clearance means business resumes. Blue Origin had aggressive targets for the rest of this year and into the next. They’re aiming for up to twelve launches by the end of 20026.
Did this one-month pause kill their momentum? Maybe. It’s unclear how the schedule will adjust. One slip up. One grounding. But rockets are volatile things. You keep firing them until something sticks. 🚀
