Just over five months after the launch of its second mission, Blue Origin’s partially reusable New Glenn rocket launched from Florida early Sunday morning. The mission marked Blue Origin’s first attempt at reusing a New Glenn first stage booster, with GS1-SN002 Never Tell Me The Odds launching again after previously launching the ESCAPADE mission to Mars for NASA in November. However, the payload was not deployed to its proper orbit.
New Glenn’s third mission, New Glenn 3 (NG-3), launched at 7:25 AM EDT (11:25 UTC) on Sunday, April 19, from Blue Origin’s Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The two-hour launch window extended to 8:45 AM EDT (12:45 UTC).
New Glenn lofted the BlueBird Block 2 FM2 satellite, also known as BlueBird 7, into low-Earth orbit (LEO) for satellite internet provider AST SpaceMobile. However, following the deployment of the satellite, Blue Origin announced that the satellite had been placed in an off-nominal orbit.
AST-Mobile Statement:
“During the New Glenn 3 mission, BlueBird 7 was placed into a lower than planned orbit by the upper stage of the launch vehicle. While the satellite separated from the launch vehicle and powered on, the altitude is too low to sustain operations with its…
— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) April 19, 2026
Following launch and stage separation, Never Tell Me The Odds reoriented itself for reentry and landing, completing a reentry burn and a landing burn before ultimately landing atop Blue Origin’s landing barge Jacklyn downrange in the Atlantic. The landing makes Blue Origin only the second company or agency to successfully reuse an orbital-class rocket booster, after SpaceX with its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
NASA mission patches
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AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7
Launching atop New Glenn is AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird Block 2 FM2 internet satellite, or BlueBird 7. A second-generation BlueBird satellite, BlueBird 7 joins AST SpaceMobile’s SpaceMobile satellite internet constellation, which is expected to provide 4G and 5G cellular broadband services directly to unmodified smartphones.
AST SpaceMobile was founded in 2017 and launched its first satellite, BlueWalker 1, in April 2019 atop an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket. A follow-up to BlueWalker 1, BlueWalker 3, was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 in September 2022. BlueWalker 3, featuring a 64-square-meter antenna array, was used to make the world’s first space-based two-way phone call in April 2023 with unmodified smartphones. The satellite would also enable the first space-based 4G and 5G broadband connection with an unmodified phone.
Following the successes of the BlueWalker prototypes, AST SpaceMobile began constructing its first fully operational BlueBird satellite and signed a contract with SpaceX to launch the first five satellites atop a Falcon 9. These five satellites were constructed at AST SpaceMobile’s facilities in Texas and launched in September 2024, with all five fully deployed by the end of October.
In November 2024, AST SpaceMobile announced the next BlueBird launch contracts and the BlueBird Block 2 satellite design. Under the new launch contracts, up to 60 BlueBird Block 2 launches were split between Blue Origin’s New Glenn, SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) launch vehicles. The first BlueBird Block 2 satellite, BlueBird 6, was successfully launched on Dec. 23, 2025, atop an ISRO Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (LVM3) rocket from India.
Artist’s impression of BlueBird Block 2 satellites in orbit. (Credit: AST SpaceMobile)
The next-generation BlueBird Block 2 satellites are over three times larger than the first-generation satellites and can deliver up to 10 times the cellular bandwidth capacity to SpaceMobile users. BlueBird Block 2 satellites, like BlueBird 7, mass 6,100 kg and feature 222-square-meter communications arrays — the largest ever deployed by a commercial provider in LEO.
Once the SpaceMobile constellation is fully operational, it will provide complete cellular broadband coverage to the United States, with over 5,600 cells, beams capable of supporting 40 MHz data capacity, and 120 Mbps data transmission speeds.
See Also
- NG-3 Updates
- Blue Origin Section
- NSF Store
- Click Here to Join L2
New Glenn and the reuse of Never Tell Me The Odds
New Glenn is Blue Origin’s heavy-lift launch vehicle and first orbital rocket, named in honor of the first American to orbit Earth, NASA astronaut John Glenn. Development of New Glenn began as early as 2012, with the vehicle suffering several delays and setbacks before finally launching on its first mission, New Glenn 1 (NG-1), in January 2025. New Glenn’s second mission, New Glenn 2 (NG-2), launched NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft to Mars 10 months later in November 2025. Both missions successfully delivered their payloads to their respective orbits.
Fully assembled, New Glenn stands 98 m tall and is seven meters wide, with two stages. The reusable first stage booster, named Glenn Stage 1 (GS1), stands 57.5 m tall and features seven of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines, powered by liquid methane and liquid oxygen. At liftoff, GS1 produces 19,928 kN of thrust and burns for 190 seconds.
New Glenn launches the ESCAPADE mission in November 2025. (Credit: Sawyer Rosenstein for NSF)
As mentioned, GS1 is reusable and features six landing legs that unfold from the booster’s aft section in the final moments before a vertical touchdown. After stage separation, GS1 reorients itself and continues coasting along its suborbital trajectory before igniting its engines for the reentry burn, which reduces the booster’s velocity ahead of landing.
The booster then continues coasting through the atmosphere to the landing barge, using its large strakes to guide itself through the atmosphere. Then, the booster ignites its engines, slows to a hover, and lands atop Landing Platform Vessel 1 (LPV1) Jacklyn, a large landing barge similar to SpaceX’s droneships.
New Glenn’s second stage, Glenn Stage 2 (GS2), sits atop GS1 and stands 23.4 m tall. GS2 features two of Blue Origin’s BE-3U engines, which produce 1,779 kN of thrust over a 644 second burn time. However, unlike GS1, the second stage uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants.
The first stage booster supporting NG-3 is GS1-SN002 Never Tell Me The Odds, which first launched on NG-2. Following its historic landing atop Jacklyn, the booster was returned to Port Canaveral, where it was moved to a horizontal position and transported to LC-36 for inspections. After passing inspections and tests, it was assigned to NG-3, where it became the first GS1 booster reused.
Launch timeline
The NG-3 New Glenn was rolled out to LC-36 for the first time on April 11 for hotfire testing, and it was raised vertically on April 12. After delays, Never Tell Me The Odds fired up again during a hotfire test on April 16. Blue Origin confirmed a successful hotifire test, and after briefly lowering the New Glenn stack for inspections, raised the rocket one final time for launch.
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— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) April 16, 2026
The 45th Weather Squadron of the U.S. Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45 provides launch weather forecasts for missions launching out of Cape Canaveral. For NG-3, the 45th Weather Squadron forecasted a 10% chance of violating weather conditions at the time of launch, with the primary constraints being the cumulus cloud rule and the thick cloud layers rule. If there was a 24-hour delay to the mission, the chance of violating weather conditions would have increased to 50%.
Launch day began at T-04:30:00 hours, when propellant began flowing into New Glenn’s two stages. Propellant loading was completed by T-45:00 minutes, after which replenishment — or the continuous refueling of tanks as their chilled propellants boil off — begins. At T-30:00 minutes, launch teams performed a weather check to confirm that weather conditions were good for launch.
At T-17:00 minutes, launch teams performed the “go”/”no-go” poll for launch. After teams polled “go,” terminal count for launch began at T-04:00 minutes. New Glenn’s fuel tanks began being pressurized at T-02:30 minutes, and the rocket switched to internal power at T-01:30 minutes. At T-30 seconds, the water deluge systems at LC-36 were activated to suppress noise and protect the launch pad from damage during launch. Also, at T-30 seconds, the vehicle’s autopilot was enabled.
Finally, at T-5.6 seconds, Never Tell Me The Odds‘ seven BE-4 engines ignited, and New Glenn lifted off from LC-36 at T0 — beginning its third mission to space.
New Glenn launches on its first mission in January 2025. (Credit: Max Evans for NASASpaceflight)
The vehicle experienced maximum aerodynamic pressure (max-q), or the period of ascent during which aerodynamic forces are at their greatest, at T+01:36 minutes. Main engine cutoff (MECO) occurred at T+03:05 minutes, with stage separation coming four seconds later. Never Tell Me The Odds then began preparations for reentry.
GS2 ignited its two BE-3U engines at T+03:16 minutes, and the fairings encapsulating BlueBird 7 were jettisoned at T+03:42 minutes. Meanwhile, Never Tell Me The Odds continued coasting through the atmosphere before igniting three engines for its reentry burn at T+07:06 minutes. The reentry burn lasted for 31 seconds.
Then, just over a minute later, at T+08:45 minutes, Never Tell Me The Odds ignited three engines for the beginning of the landing burn. The booster then shut down the outer two engines at T+09:03 minutes, and, after hovering above its deck, slowly descended onto Jacklyn, finally touching down at T+09:23 minutes.
Mission patch for NG-3. (Credit: Blue Origin)
GS2 continued to orbit, finally cutting off its engines at T+13:01 minutes. The second stage and BlueBird 7 coasted for nearly an hour, before GS2 was supposed to reignited its engines at T+01:09:41 hours for a 68-second burn. Five minutes after the burn was supposed to complete, BlueBird 7 was deployed to LEO.
Blue Origin later confirmed that, while BlueBird 7 had been deployed into LEO, it was placed into an off-nominal orbit. Teams are reviewing information and will share more once the situation has been fully assessed.
(Lead Image: New Glenn launches from LC-36. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
