- Blue Origin reused a rocket booster on its latest mission
- It was the first time it had done this and it marked a major milestone
- However, the mission was a failure as it did not place its satellite payload high enough
Over the weekend, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space company hit a major milestone by successfully reusing a rocket booster for the first time – deploying the same ‘Never Tell Me The Odds’ rocket on Sunday’s NG-3 mission that it used back in November for NG-2.
This should be a time to celebrate as Blue Origin proves it can better compete with SpaceX on sustainability and space travel capabilities, but it isn’t. Why? Because the NG-3’s primary objective was a complete failure.
In addition to a rocket booster reusability test, Blue Origin’s primary objective for this flight was to release an AST SpaceMobile communications satellite – BlueBird 7 – into orbit. It technically did this, but NG-3 placed the satellite “lower than planned,” as AST put it.
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According to an AST SpaceMobile statement: “While the satellite separated from the launch vehicle and ignited, the altitude is too low to sustain operations with its onboard thruster technology and will [be] de-circuit. The costs of the satellite are expected to be covered under the company’s insurance policy.”
This means that the satellite will be moved and allowed to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
It IS rocket science
For AST SpaceMobile, this failure isn’t the end of the world — it says it still plans to launch 45 more satellites before 2026 ends — but for Blue Origin, this failure will leave an embarrassing blemish on what should have been an otherwise momentous flight.
The upside is that if this mission were to fail, at least Blue Origin would have messed with a satellite launch and not the first launch of its lunar lander — which was originally intended to be NG-3’s purpose.
The next NASA Artemis mission is expected to drop people on the moon for the first time in over 50 years, but it still lacks a lander. SpaceX and Blue Origin are currently racing to design and test the craft that will take astronauts from their spacecraft to the lunar surface, but neither has completed the project yet.
Because the Artemis missions are intended to establish a permanent lunar base, the new lander approach cannot be a repeat of the one-and-done style of previous missions to the moon—it must be something that can repeatedly shuttle crew and cargo.
There is also much less room for error when transporting personnel compared to cargo. Things can be replaced, people’s lives cannot.
We’ll have to wait and see how this glitch affects Blue Origin’s lunar landing bid. Rocket science is notoriously difficult, so hopefully this will simply be a learning experience for the company.
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