Blue Origin’s Failure May Hamstring NASA’s Moon Plans
The New York Times • • business
Key Points:
- Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket launched successfully on Sunday, with its booster landing safely on an Atlantic Ocean barge, but failed to place a commercial satellite into the correct orbit.
- AST SpaceMobile confirmed its BlueBird 7 communications satellite ended up in an orbit too low to sustain operations, rendering the mission a failure.
- The setback impacts Blue Origin, AST SpaceMobile, and potentially NASA, which relies on Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket for future Artemis moon program missions.
- Blue Origin is conducting an investigation with Federal Aviation Administration oversight to determine the cause of the failure, and the New Glenn rocket will remain grounded until the issue is resolved.
