FAA orders investigation into Blue Origin New Glenn accident

The Federal Aviation Administration directed Blue Origin to investigate an apparent failure of the upper stage of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday, the Orlando Sentinel reported. This means the company will not be able to operate New Glenn again until the exploration is completed.

This could put a damper on Blue Origin’s ambitions to launch up to 12 more New Glenn missions this year, depending on how long the investigation lasts.

The problem occurred during the third launch of Blue Origin’s giant New Glenn rocket over the weekend. The launch got off to a good start, with the company reusing the Newglen booster for the first time ever and landing the booster again on a drone ship at sea.

Developing and proving the rocket’s reusability is a major step forward for Blue Origin, the only spaceflight company able to accomplish this feat, potentially putting it on a path to compete with launch industry powerhouse Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

But its primary mission was to deliver communications satellites into space for paying customer AST SpaceMobile. The New Glenn rocket’s second stage successfully separated from its booster, but something went wrong shortly after. AST SpaceMobile said in a statement Sunday that the rocket placed the satellite in a “lower than planned” orbit. In fact, it’s in such a low orbit that the company plans to consider the satellite a lost cause and let it burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said in a statement Monday that the company believes one of the engines in the upper stage “did not generate enough thrust to reach the target orbit.”

AST SpaceMobile said it has insurance to cover the cost of the lost satellite. The company also said it has several new satellites that are nearly complete and expects to be ready for space within weeks. The company also has agreements with other launch providers. AST SpaceMobile’s stock price fell more than 10% on Monday morning before recovering slightly.

As for Blue Origin, the upper stage accident is not the only risk to its commercial mission potential. The company is working on a lunar lander and has big plans to be part of the Trump administration and NASA’s focus on returning humans to the moon.

Blue Origin is also in the process of obtaining U.S. Space Force certification for New Glenn to fly government national security missions. The Space Force did not respond to requests for comment.

This article has been updated with a statement from Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp.