Blue Origin has successfully reused one of its New Glenn rockets for the first time, but the mission's overall success is in question due to an "off-nominal orbit" achieved by the rocket's upper stage. The communications satellite carried to space by New Glenn for AST SpaceMobile was placed into an orbit that was lower than planned, requiring it to be de-orbited.
According to Blue Origin, the company confirmed payload separation and powered on the satellite, but is currently assessing what went wrong with the upper stage. The company had previously stated that the upper stage should have performed a second burn one hour after launch, but it's unclear if this happened or not.
The re-use feat was accomplished on just the third-ever launch of New Glenn, more than a year after its first flight. Making New Glenn reusable is crucial to its economics, as SpaceX's ability to re-fly Falcon 9 rocket boosters has dominated the global orbital launch market.
Blue Origin plans to use New Glenn for NASA moon missions and to build space-based satellite networks, including a deal with AST SpaceMobile to send multiple satellites to orbit over the next few years.
