Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral on April 19 carrying AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 direct-to-device satellite. The booster landed on the droneship Jacklyn as planned, marking the first-ever reuse of a New Glenn first stage. Then the second burn failed, and BlueBird 7 never reached orbit. Update, May 23: the FAA has closed the NG-3 mishap investigation and cleared New Glenn to resume launches once Blue Origin completes verified corrective actions. The final report traced the failure to a cryogenic leak that froze a hydraulic line and triggered a BE-3U thrust anomaly , narrowing the problem from a generic upper-stage shortfall to a specific thermal and fluid-system failure. AI-generated image New Glenn NG-3 lifted off from Launch Complex 36 at 7:25 a.m. EDT on April 19, 2026. Credit: AI-generated / Cislunar News What Happened on NG-3 New Glenn's third flight followed a script that looked promising through main engine cutoff. The countdown held 40 minutes on an unspecified technical issue, then the vehicle lifted off cleanly. First-stage separation came on cue, the fairing separated, and the first upper-stage burn went nominal. About 69 minutes after liftoff, when the second upper-stage burn was supposed to fire for 68 seconds and circularize the orbit, something went wrong. Blue Origin shut down its public webcast immediately after booster landing, which is its standard practice. The silence stretched past the moment BlueBird 7 was supposed to deploy. An hour later, the company confirmed the satellite had separated and powered on, but in an orbit that could not sustain operations. NG-3 Mission Summary • Launch: April 19, 2026, 7:25 a.m. EDT, Launch Complex 36, Cape Canaveral SFS • Payload: AST SpaceMobile BlueBird 7, 6,100 kg direct-to-device broadband satellite • Planned orbit: 460 km circular, 49.4-degree inclination • Actual orbit: 154 x 494 km parking orbit, 36.1-degree inclination (off-nominal on both altitude and inclination) • Root cause: Cryogenic leak froze a hydraulic line, leading to a BE-3U thrust anomaly during the second upper-stage burn • Outcome: Satellite deorbited and reentered April 20; FAA investigation closed May 22 with nine corrective actions Tracking data from the U.S. Space Force confirmed the upper stage and payload in a parking orbit far lower and at a different inclination than planned. The inclination mismatch alone would have required enormous delta-v to correct, far beyond what BlueBird 7's electric propulsion could provide. AST SpaceMobile declared the satellite lost the same day and initiated deorbit. The spacecraft reentered the atmosphere April 20. AI-generated image The BE-3U engine powers New Glenn's upper stage using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The FAA-approved mishap report traced NG-3's failure to a cryogenic leak that froze a hydraulic line before the second burn. Credit: AI-generated / Cislunar News The BE-3U and What the FAA Says Failed New Glenn's second stage is powered by two BE-3U engines, a vacuum-optimized variant of the BE-3 engine Blue Origin developed for New Shepard. BE-3 runs on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and has accumulated considerable operational history on suborbital flights. The upper-stage variant adds a larger nozzle optimized for vacuum expansion. The FAA-approved mishap report points to a narrower failure chain than Blue Origin first described. Before the planned circularization burn, a cryogenic leak created an off-nominal thermal condition that froze a hydraulic line. That left one BE-3U unable to reach full thrust during the second-stage burn, stranding BlueBird 7 below its target orbit. That detail matters because it shifts the fix from a broad question about BE-3U combustion performance to plumbing, thermal control, hydraulic protection, sensing, and pre-burn health checks on GS2. Blue Origin identified nine corrective actions in its final report. The FAA did not publish those actions, but said it will verify their implementation before the next New Glenn launch. 2 BE-3U Engines on Upper Stage 68s Planned Circularization Burn Duration 6,100 kg BlueBird 7 Mass 460 km Target Circular Orbit 154 km Actual Perigee (Fatal Low) 3rd Flight in New Glenn History The fact that the inclination landed at 36.1 degrees instead of 49.4 degrees compounds the anomaly. A pure thrust shortfall would affect the apogee, but getting the inclination wrong by 13 degrees suggests the stage did not execute the planned guidance and burn profile after the hydraulic failure. Blue Origin has not released a second-by-second timeline, and the FAA did not disclose the corrective actions, so the public record still leaves open how much software, valve actuation, or engine-control logic changed after the leak began. May 22 FAA Closure • Direct cause: Cryogenic leak froze a hydraulic line and caused the second-stage thrust anomaly • Corrective actions: Nine identified by Blue Origin, with FAA verification required before the next launch • Fleet status: Investigation closed, New Glenn cleared to resume launch activity once fixes are verified • Next vehicle: Blue Origin has begun preparing the NG-4 hardware for integrated hot-fire testing The Booster That Landed Anyway The single unambiguous success from NG-3 was the reuse of the "Never Tell Me The Odds" first stage, the same booster that carried NASA's ESCAPADE Mars mission on NG-2 in November 2025. The stage separated cleanly, executed its flip and burn sequence, and touched down on the Jacklyn droneship about nine and a half minutes after liftoff. AI-generated image New Glenn's "Never Tell Me The Odds" booster successfully landed on the Jacklyn droneship, achieving the first reuse of a New Glenn first stage. All seven BE-4 engines were new for this flight; the NG-2 engines will fly on future missions. Credit: AI-generated / Cislunar News Reuse on this flight was partial by design. Blue Origin elected to fly seven fresh BE-4 engines and test a thermal protection system upgrade on one nozzle, reserving the NG-2 engines for future flights. Dave Limp described the plan as deliberate, allowing engineers to validate the refurbishment process before committing already-flown engines to another mission. That approach makes sense from a fleet-scaling standpoint, but it makes the upper-stage failure harder to absorb. Blue Origin needs New Glenn flying at high cadence to support AST SpaceMobile's aggressive 2026 constellation schedule. The company's vice president of mission management, Laura Maginnis, told the Satellite 2026 conference in March that Blue Origin was "looking at increasing resources, tooling, and processes" to scale quickly, without providing specific launch-per-year forecasts. AST SpaceMobile's CEO had publicly committed to a 30-day or shorter turnaround between launches after NG-3. AST SpaceMobile's 2026 Constellation Target • 45 satellites in orbit by year-end 2026, per CEO Abel Avellan's March commitment • 60 satellites ready to ship as of December 2026 • Batch launches planned: 3, 4, 6, or 8 satellites per flight going forward • Insurance coverage: Loss expected to be covered; insurance costs 3-20% of insured value • BlueBird 7 mass: 6,100 kg, with 220+ square-meter deployable phased-array antenna The FAA closure removes the biggest immediate schedule overhang, but it does not erase the cadence problem. AST SpaceMobile has shifted near-term BlueBird launches back to Falcon 9 while Blue Origin prepares NG-4. The open question is whether New Glenn can return quickly enough, and then fly often enough, to become the batch-launch workhorse AST expected before NG-3. What the Grounding Means for Blue Moon and Artemis The AST SpaceMobile schedule is a near-term commercial problem. The longer-term concern for cislunar space is what the NG-3 failure says about New Glenn's upper-stage maturity. New Glenn is the planned launch vehicle for Blue Moon Endurance, the cargo lander that completed thermal-vacuum testing at NASA's Johnso