Blue Origin marks first landing of reused New Glenn rocket booster, ratcheting up SpaceX rivalry

InternationalScience & TechnologyBlue Origin marks first landing of reused New Glenn rocket booster, ratcheting up SpaceX rivalryBy Reuters -Apr 19, 2026Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin on Sunday said its New Glenn rocket booster touched down after its ​launch, marking its first landing of a reused booster. The rocket, which had ‌a launch window of 6:45 a.m. to 12:19 p.m. ET on Sunday, lifted off at around 7:25 a.m. ET (1125 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and the booster touchdown happened about 10 minutes ​later. New Glenn carried AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite to low-Earth orbit in a ​flight that marks a pivotal step for the company. The mission was ⁠key to demonstrating that New Glenn, a 29-story heavy-lift rocket, has a reliable booster ​reuse capability and can compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket’s booster, ​dubbed “Never Tell Me the Odds,” previously flew on the NG-2 mission in November and was recovered, setting up this week’s milestone attempt. The booster’s name is a nod to a Han Solo line in ​the film “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.” Following a series of delays earlier this month, ​the mission comes amid a surge of activity in the space sector, including the successful NASA Artemis ‌II ⁠lunar flyby that took humans further from Earth than any had traveled before. Blue Origin had said in November that it would build a bigger, more powerful variant of its New Glenn rocket, called New Glenn 9×4. AST SATELLITE CONSTELLATION New Glenn is designed for the higher ​end of the commercial ​launch market with ⁠a seven-meter (23-foot) nose cone allowing it to carry bulkier payloads, including multiple satellites in a single mission. AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7, carried ​into orbit on NG-3, is the second satellite in its next-generation ​Block 2 ⁠constellation. The satellite features what the company describes as the largest commercial communications array deployed in low-Earth orbit. Designed to connect directly with smartphones,...