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Blue Origin rocket reusable booster lands but satellite misses orbit
YahooApr 20, 2026
STORY: The reusable booster of the New Glenn rocket launched from Florida on Sunday touched down successfully after about 10 minutes.However, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket failed to deploy the AST SpaceMobile communications satellite it was carrying into the correct orbit.In a statement, AST said that the BlueBird 7 satellite was placed into a lower than planned orbit by the upper stage of the launch vehicle.The satellite was part of an effort to build a space-based cellular broadband network, similar to Amazon's Leo or SpaceX's Starlink.Sunday's mission - the third for New Glenn - was key to demonstrating that the rocket had a reliable booster reuse capability and could compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9.The rocket's booster dubbed "Never Tell Me the Odds," - a nod to a Han Solo line in 'Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back' - had flown on the second mission in November and was recovered, setting up this milestone attempt.The mission comes amid a surge of activity in the space sector, including the successful NASA Artemis II lunar flyby.SpaceX and Blue Origin have been racing to help return people to the moon, ahead of a planned crewed mission by China in 2030.Following the launch, SpaceX's Elon Musk congratulated Bezos on social media.
