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Blue Origin's New Glenn leaves customer satellite in wrong orbit

techApr 20, 2026968

On its third flight from Cape Canaveral on Sunday, Blue Origin's New Glenn placed an AST SpaceMobile satellite into a lower-than-planned orbit after the rocket's upper stage experienced a performance issue during payload insertion. Blue Origin recovered the New Glenn first-stage booster by landing it on the droneship Jacklyn in the Atlantic Ocean, and Jeff Bezos posted video of the successful booster recovery. AST SpaceMobile said it will de-orbit the satellite rather than attempt to raise it to the planned higher altitude.

Key Highlights

New Glenn's third flight launched from Cape Canaveral on Sunday.
An AST SpaceMobile satellite ended up in a lower-than-planned orbit.
Blue Origin landed the reusable booster on droneship Jacklyn in the Atlantic.
3 sources
cbsnews.comIn its third flight, a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket puts satellite payload into wrong orbittechcrunch.comBlue Origin’s New Glenn put a customer satellite in the wrong orbit during its third launchspiegel.deBlue Origin: Bezos-Rakete »New Glenn« setzt Satellit in falscher Umlaufbahn ab

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