Blue Origin completes investigation into New Glenn launch failure

New Glenn lifts off April 19 on the NG-3 mission. Credit: Blue Origin

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin has completed the investigation into the failure on the third flight of its New Glenn rocket, clearing launches of the vehicle to resume.

In a May 22 statement, Blue Origin said the Federal Aviation Administration approved its report investigating the April 19 launch of New Glenn on the NG-3 mission. During the flight, the second stage, called GS2 by the company, suffered a problem during its second burn. That stranded the payload, the BlueBird 7 satellite for AST SpaceMobile, in an orbit too low for the spacecraft to recover from.

“Prior to our second GS2 burn, we experienced an off-nominal thermal condition, and, as a result, one of the BE-3U engines didn’t achieve full thrust to reach our target orbit,” Blue Origin stated.

In a statement to SpaceNews, the FAA confirmed that it had closed the investigation, led by Blue Origin, into the launch failure and will allow launches of the vehicle to resume.