April 19 (Reuters) – Blue Origin on Sunday said its New Glenn rocket booster touched down after its launch, marking its first landing of a reused booster.
New Glenn carries AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite to low-Earth orbit in a flight that marks a pivotal step for the Jeff Bezos-led company.
The mission was key in showing that New Glenn, a 29-story heavy-lift rocket, has a reliable booster reuse capability and can compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The rocket’s booster, “Never Tell Me the Odds,” previously flew on the NG-2 mission in November and was recovered, setting up this week’s milestone attempt.
The booster’s name is a nod to Han Solo’s line in the film ‘Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.’
Following a series of delays earlier this month, the mission comes amid a surge of activity in the space sector, including a successful NASA Artemis II lunar flyby.
(Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru. Editing by Jane Merriman)
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