The booster had already been to space once. Blue Origin planned to send it back up on the third flight of New Glenn, scheduled for no earlier than Sunday, April 19, from the rebuilt Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral. The mission, NG-3, would be the first time the company reused a first-stage booster.
The booster, nicknamed “Never Tell Me The Odds,” flew on NG-2 in November 2025, carrying NASA’s ESCAPADE spacecraft toward Mars. It then landed on the Jacklyn droneship in the Atlantic Ocean. Technicians refurbished it, fitting a fresh set of seven BE-4 engines and adding upgrades, including a thermal protection system on one engine nozzle.
CEO Dave Limp explained the choice. “With our first refurbished booster we elected to replace all seven engines and test out a few upgrades including a thermal protection system on one of the engine nozzles,” he said. “We plan to use the engines we flew for NG-2 on future flights.”
The payload and the window
On top sat AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7, a Block 2 satellite built to beam high-speed cellular broadband straight to standard smartphones. Its antenna spans 2,400 square feet, one of the largest commercially deployed in low Earth orbit. Initial service was expected later in the year.
The launch window ran two hours, from 6:45 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. EDT. Had everything gone to plan, the booster would separate about 3.5 minutes after liftoff and make a precision landing on Jacklyn roughly six minutes later. Blue Origin’s website and its account on X were to carry coverage starting at 6:15 a.m. EDT.
The rocket
New Glenn stands over 320 feet tall with a 23-foot fairing. It can lift more than 45 metric tons to low Earth orbit and 13 metric tons to geostationary transfer orbit. The first stage burns liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen in seven BE-4 engines, each producing 640,000 pounds of thrust. Fins and landing legs guide it down onto a sea-based platform. The upper stage uses two BE-3U engines for orbital insertion.
Blue Origin designed each booster for at least 25 flights. The first New Glenn mission, in January 2025, reached orbit but skipped booster recovery. NG-2 brought the first recovery.
