Why Blue Origin's latest success left its biggest rocket grounded

Jeff Bezos' rocket company put a satellite in the wrong spot.

But, for a company struggling to keep up with rival SpaceX, that was still a win.

The April mission marked an early success for Blue Origin's New Glenn heavy-lift rocket, which the Kent-based company has launched just three times. Blue Origin successfully recovered New Glenn's booster stage, the part of the rocket that propels the whole system off the launchpad before separating, sending the upper stage to space and the booster back to Earth.

Blue Origin is one of the few companies that has designed a rocket with a reusable booster stage. The recent mission was the first time Blue Origin used the recycled booster.

But the upper stage didn't do its job, dropping the satellite off lower than planned and causing its customer, AST SpaceMobile, to leave it to burn up in space. The Federal Aviation Administration grounded the New Glenn rocket as Blue Origin determines what caused the missed delivery.

That marks another delay for Blue Origin.

SpaceX and Blue Origin have taken vastly different approaches to the space race - SpaceX moves fast, fails and then launches again, while Blue Origin tests and tests before taking to the launchpad. The recent mission was Blue Origin's chance to prove its strategy would work, said Chad Anderson, founder and managing partner of venture firm Space Capital. That didn't happen.

The challenge of their approach, where they do everything slowly … there's not a lot of opportunity for failure," Anderson said. "We don't know how long they're going to be grounded or how long it's going to take to get to the bottom of this."

But the delay likely won't lead to any lost customers, thanks to a massive supply and demand imbalance in the industry, space consultants and analysts told The Seattle Times. There are only a handful of rocket companies able to deliver payloads to space and nearly all of them have experienced recent setbacks.

One of Blue Origin's largest launch customers, Amazon's satellite venture Leo, told The Times it will be ready to incorporate New Glenn back into its launch cadence as soon as it's flying again.

AST SpaceMobile, the company that lost its satellite, isn't worried either.

On a Monday call with analysts, President Scott Wisniewski even celebrated Blue Origin's booster recovery as "a great milestone." When it's flying again, Blue Origin will have two booster stages ready to increase launches, Wisniewski said.

Shortly after the incident, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp posted on X that the company was "pleased" with its booster recovery but "we clearly didn't deliver the mission our customer wanted, and our team expects."

A satellite in the wrong orbit

Though it sounds shocking, delivering a satellite to the wrong place isn't that big of a deal, according to space industry watchers who spoke with The Times.

SpaceX changed expectations with a high cadence of successful launches, but rockets used to mess up deliveries all the time. That's why companies insure the million-dollar satellites they shoot off.

"It used to be every time your rocket would go up, you'd put your satellite on it and you'd be nervously chewing your fingernails off," Anderson said. "SpaceX changed the paradigm."

Blue Origin's third New Glenn mission launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on April 19 with plans to bring a satellite to low earth orbit for AST SpaceMobile, a Texas-based company building a space-based cellular broadband network. But New Glenn delivered the satellite "too low to sustain operations," according to AST SpaceMobile.

Limp said on X that "early data" suggested the second burn of one of New Glenn's BE-3U engines didn't produce enough thrust.

According to Kayhan Space, a technology company that tracks objects in space, New Glenn delivered the satellite about 93 miles from Earth, far short of the more than 300 miles it was aiming for.

Most satellites in low earth orbit are somewhere between 250 and 620 miles from Earth, said Siamak Hesar, Kayhan's CEO and co-founder.

The satellite also ended up in an elliptical orbit, meaning it spent very little time where it was meant to be.

The satellite separated from the upper stage then didn't have enough energy to push itself to the appropriate orbit. By now, both pieces have probably burned up in the atmosphere.

"This is a step back, but I don't think we can categorize it as a failure," Hesar said. "At the end of the day, space is hard."

The severity of the mishap hinges on how long it takes Blue Origin to figure out why the engine produced too little thrust and identify a fix, industry analysts said.

That process is hindered by the fact that the company can't examine the upper stage. But it's helped by a large amount of data Blue Origin has on similar engines on the New Shepard rocket, the company's space tourism shuttle.

"If it's something relatively simple - a faulty sensor, a software change, squeaky valve - no big deal probably," said Stan Shull, founder of space technology consulting firm Alliance Velocity. "If it's some kind of design flaw, and they've already produced a lot of engines … they'll have to go back and fix that."

"My net takeaway is that Blue Origin is deliberate, dedicated, determined," Shull said. "They'll get this fixed. It's just a question of how long that takes."

Catering to NASA and Amazon

A New Glenn grounding also threatens to disrupt Blue Origin and NASA's plans to return to the moon.

NASA's Artemis II mission just successfully sent four astronauts to circle the moon, marking one step in its journey to use the lunar surface as a stopping point on the way to Mars.

For future Artemis missions, NASA selected both SpaceX and Blue Origin to build lunar landers, the vehicle that gets astronauts to the lunar surface and back off again. Blue Origin intends to use New Glenn to launch its lunar lander.

Last year, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the space agency was reopening one of the earliest slots for a lunar lander, previously awarded to SpaceX, citing delays with its heavy-lift rocket, Starship.

In February, NASA announced its third Artemis mission, planned for 2027, would rendezvous with "one or both commercial landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin."

Even with New Glenn's grounding, space industry analysts don't expect the mishap will impact Blue Origin's standing in the Artemis program.

NASA will want two options for lunar landers, and there are plenty of other obstacles the space agency still has to overcome to meet its timeline. A New Glenn delay wouldn't be the "long pole in the tent for staying on schedule," said Shull, from Alliance Velocity.

In fact, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in April, shortly after the incident, he was confident Blue Origin's "sustained achievements … will keep us on track for success with the Artemis program."

In May, NASA posted a photo of a prototype of Blue Origin's moon lander, sparking excitement for future missions.

On the commercial front, AST SpaceMobile and Amazon are among Blue Origin's largest New Glenn customers.

Amazon, which started its satellite venture Leo in 2019 under the name Project Kuiper, plans to launch more than 3,200 satellites to expand broadband access, but it is running behind schedule.

Amazon had to ask the Federal Communications Commissions in January for an extension to its Leo license, which required the company to deploy half of its 3,200 satellites by the end of July. Amazon has so far sent about 300 satellites to low earth orbit.

Amazon pinned the blame for its delay on "an unprecedented logjam" from launch providers, including Blue Origin, telling the FCC Leo was "producing satellites considerably faster than others can launch them."

Amazon is working with several launch providers, but Blue Origin accounted for the majority of its recent spending. According to a regulatory filing, of the $2.2 billion Amazon spent on its launches, $1.8 billion went to Blue Origin.

Companies like Amazon that have already paid for launches on New Glenn won't relinquish their spot, said Chris Quilty, president of space consulting firm Quilty Space. But the longer New Glenn is grounded, customers may have to shift future plans.

The incident could also make it harder for Blue Origin to make money, Quilty said. Because of earlier delays, the cost of insuring a satellite hitching a ride on New Glenn is already higher than other launch providers. After the April incident, it will only go up and customers are more likely to ask for a discount.

But, Quilty continued, Blue Origin will make that back. More successful launches will boost its reputation and revenue.

"Launch failures," he said, come with the territory."

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This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 6:55 AM.