Blue Origin to reuse New Glenn booster on next launch

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin will reuse a New Glenn booster for the first time on the rocket’s next launch, carrying a satellite for AST SpaceMobile.

Blue Origin announced Jan. 22 that its next New Glenn mission, designated NG-3, is scheduled for no earlier than late February from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. It will be the rocket’s third flight and the first since the launch of NASA’s ESCAPADE Mars mission on Nov. 13.

The NG-3 launch will use the same booster, named “Never Tell Me The Odds”, that flew on the NG-2 mission carrying ESCAPADE. That flight marked the first successful landing of New Glenn’s first stage after the booster was lost during a recovery attempt on the otherwise successful NG-1 launch in January 2025.

In an interview shortly after the NG-2 launch, Blue Origin Chief Executive Dave Limp said the company was considering reflying the booster on the next mission. “It’s kind of a toss-up, because the third booster is pretty far along in manufacturing,” he said at the time.

Limp also said then that the likely payload for NG-3 would be the company’s first Blue Moon Mark 1 lunar lander. “Assuming that stays on the schedule that we’re on right now, I think it’s likely our third mission,” he said.

However, that uncrewed lander, named Endurance, is not yet ready for launch. On Jan. 21, Blue Origin transported the lander from Cape Canaveral to a ship at nearby Port Canaveral, which will carry it to Houston. There, the lander will undergo thermal vacuum testing at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, suggesting it will be several months before it will be ready.

Taking its place on NG-3 will be BlueBird 7, a satellite built by AST SpaceMobile, which is developing a constellation to provide broadband direct-to-device services. The satellite is identical to BlueBird 6, the company’s first next-generation spacecraft, which launched on an Indian LVM3 rocket on Dec. 23.

AST SpaceMobile said at the time of the BlueBird 6 launch that it expects to deploy between 45 and 60 satellites by the end of 2026. While only one spacecraft will fly on the upcoming New Glenn mission, future launches on the rocket are expected to carry as many as eight satellites.