{"id":67374,"date":"2026-05-27T14:50:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=67374"},"modified":"2026-05-27T14:50:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:50:49","slug":"blue-origin-lines-up-1st-new-glenn-launch-since-rocket-was-grounded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/05\/27\/blue-origin-lines-up-1st-new-glenn-launch-since-rocket-was-grounded\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Origin lines up 1st New Glenn launch since rocket was grounded"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Blue<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Blue Origin’s 322-foot New Glenn heavy-lift rocket.. Source: Blue Origin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officially cleared Blue Origin\u2019s heavy-lift New Glenn<\/strong> rocket to return to flight.<\/sup> The clearance comes after a upper-stage malfunction on its third mission (NG-3) on April 19, 2026, left a customer’s satellite stranded in a critically low orbit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mishap overshadowed what was otherwise a major engineering triumph for the company. During the April launch, Blue Origin successfully flew a refurbished first-stage booster named “Never Tell Me The Odds”<\/em> for the first time, nailing a pinpoint landing on their droneship, Jacklyn<\/em>, in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, things fell apart further up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Went Wrong?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The FAA-supervised investigation quickly isolated the root cause to a hardware vulnerability in the upper stage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • The Leak:<\/strong> A cryogenic leak developed during flight, spraying super-chilled propellant onto nearby systems.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Freeze:<\/strong> The sub-zero temperatures froze a crucial hydraulic line.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Anomaly:<\/strong> With the hydraulics compromised, one of the upper stage’s dual BE-3U engines<\/strong> failed to produce enough thrust during a key orbital insertion burn.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Loss:<\/strong> AST SpaceMobile\u2019s massive BlueBird 7<\/strong> smartphone-connectivity satellite was deployed into an altitude far too low to sustain operations. It separated and powered on, but it couldn’t recover and was forced to de-orbit, burning up in Earth’s atmosphere a day later.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    The Path Forward<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    To satisfy regulators, Blue Origin identified and implemented nine corrective actions<\/strong>\u2014including redesigned insulation and line routing\u2014to ensure cryogenic leaks can’t freeze vital flight controls moving forward.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The timing of this clearance is a massive sigh of relief for Jeff Bezos’ aerospace firm. Blue Origin is operating on a tight timeline to scale up production, aiming to build 60 upper stages by late 2028.<\/sup> More pressingly, the company recently secured 468 million dollars in NASA contracts for its Blue Moon<\/strong> lunar base project.<\/sup> Getting New Glenn reliably flying is the absolute linchpin for testing those uncrewed lunar landers later this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The FAA will verify the physical implementation of the nine fixes on the pad before officially issuing the launch license for the next flight, which is expected to lift off as early as mid-to-late June.<\/sup><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Blue Origin’s 322-foot New Glenn heavy-lift rocket.. Source: Blue Origin The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officially cleared Blue Origin\u2019s heavy-lift New Glenn rocket to return to flight. The clearance comes… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDVcL2ltYWdlcy0xMC53ZWJwP2ZpdD0zODclMkMyNTgmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJCbHVlIE9yaWdpbiBsaW5lcyB1cCAxc3QgTmV3IEdsZW5uIGxhdW5jaCBzaW5jZSByb2NrZXQgd2FzIGdyb3VuZGVkIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.tqQiUMGYeNfYQyQsSFGDRf2xtRqP0VgA-0ZK0NLlnJcMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjZcLzA1XC9pbWFnZXMtMTAud2VicCIsInR4dCI6IkJsdWUgT3JpZ2luIGxpbmVzIHVwIDFzdCBOZXcgR2xlbm4gbGF1bmNoIHNpbmNlIHJvY2tldCB3YXMgZ3JvdW5kZWQiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.OEXeBkB3FrPMsoPqQA6WXV8ILlq6FFX8tSdgEslvaSwMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67376,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67374\/revisions\/67376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}