Artemis Program · Ars Technica
There, the upper stage was expected to release AST’s BlueBird 7 satellite about 1 hour and 15 minutes
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◎ Multiple-sources
Blue Origin’s upper stage performed well on the first two New Glenn flights last year.
Key facts
- The 321-foot-tall (98-meter) New Glenn launch vehicle ignited its seven methane-fueled BE-4 engines at 7:25 am EDT (11:25 UTC) Sunday, beginning a slow climb from its launch pad at Cape Canaveral
- Updated at 2:45 pm EDT (18:45 UTC) with AST SpaceMobile statement
- There, the upper stage was expected to release AST’s BlueBird 7 satellite about 1 hour and 15 minutes into the mission
- The twin-engine upper stage was supposed to complete two burns to place AST SpaceMobile’s direct-to-cell satellite into an orbit approximately 285 miles (460 kilometers) above the Earth
Summary
The third flight of Blue Origin’s heavy-lift New Glenn launcher began Sunday with the company’s first successful reflight of an orbital-class booster, but ended with a setback for Jeff Bezos’ flagship rocket, a key element in NASA’s Artemis lunar program. The 321-foot-tall (98-meter) New Glenn launch vehicle ignited its seven methane-fueled BE-4 engines at 7:25 am EDT (11:25 UTC) Sunday, beginning a slow climb from its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The main engines, each producing more than a half-million pounds of thrust, accelerated the rocket past the speed of sound in about a minute-and-a-half. New Glenn’s first stage continued a downrange parabolic arc, briefly soaring into space before guiding itself toward Blue Origin’s landing platform in the Atlantic Ocean nearly 400 miles southeast of Cape Canaveral.