The U.S. aviation regulator has ordered billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s space company Blue Origin to ground its New Glenn rocket pending an investigation into a malfunction that prevented the proper deployment of a communications satellite during a launch from Florida on Sunday (19 April).
Under the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) directive, Blue Origin must complete a mishap inquiry and obtain the agency’s approval of the final report and any corrective actions before it can resume flying the rocket.
New Glenn’s failure to launch the satellite into high enough orbit is a setback to Bezos’s firm's quest to compete with SpaceX, the world’s leading rocket launch service ran by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp, wrote on X, on Monday that early data suggested one of the two BE-3U engines that power the rocket’s upper stage “didn’t produce sufficient thrust” to allow the satellite to reach the target orbit.
"Blue Origin is leading the anomaly investigation with FAA oversight to learn from the data and implement the improvements needed to quickly return to flight operations," he added.
The BlueBird 7 satellite, designed by Texas firm AST, was part of AST’s effort to build a space-based cellular broadband network, similar to SpaceX’s Starlink.
The ill-fated satellite re-entered the atmosphere on Monday, presumably burning up harmless over the earth, according to Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who tracks space objects for the American Astronomical Society.
New Glenn’s reusable lower-stage rocket booster blasted off successfully from Cape Canaveral on Sunday morning at around 7:25 a.m. ET (1125 GMT) and touched down around 10 minutes later.
Blue Origin, founded by Bezos in 2000, was until recent years known mainly for flying celebrities and other wealthy passengers to the edge of space and back in its New Shepard rocketship.
The company announced in January, however, that it was halting its space tourism business for at least two years to focus more on commercial launch services and building a moon lander for NASA.
Sunday's mission was a key test of the 29-storey New Glenn rocket, in its bid to compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. The mission comes amid a surge of activity in the space sector.
Earlier in April, NASA’s Artemis II mission made history with a lunar flyby that took the astronauts further from earth than ever before.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is building a special version of its Starship designed to land astronauts on the moon, as part of NASA’s Artemis programme.
The developments come amid a U.S. space race with China to return humans to the moon for the first time since 1972.
Beijing, which plans to land its first crewed mission on the moon by 2030, is considered to currently be ahead in the contest.
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Israel's defence minister said on Wednesday Israeli troops will not withdraw from southern Lebanon, highlighting a hurdle to Iran-U.S. peace talks, as the top U.S. diplomat tours the Middle East to win over allies sceptical about a proposed deal.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he will “most likely” hold bilateral talks with U.S. President Donald Trump during next month’s NATO summit in Ankara, where the American leader is expected to attend.
Russia has called for clarification on whether U.S. President Donald Trump has changed his position on the war in Ukraine following remarks made at the recent G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains.
China’s anti-corruption authorities have launched an investigation into Bian Zhigang, a senior defence and space official, over suspected serious violations of discipline and law, officials said on Wednesday.
A Ukrainian strike has damaged a school building in a Russian-controlled area of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, according to local authorities cited by the TASS news agency. No injuries were reported in the incident.
Israel's defence minister said on Wednesday Israeli troops will not withdraw from southern Lebanon, highlighting a hurdle to Iran-U.S. peace talks, as the top U.S. diplomat tours the Middle East to win over allies sceptical about a proposed deal.
U.S. President Donald Trump said that Iran had agreed to nuclear inspections into "infinity, despite Tehran's denials, and that unfrozen Iranian assets would be used to buy humanitarian supplies from the United States.
Authorities in France are reporting that about 20 people have died over the weekend while swimming in unsupervised areas of rivers, lakes and coastal waters as they tried to escape the heatwave.
Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo have surpassed 1,000, with health officials warning that the outbreak is spreading rapidly through displacement camps and across borders.
American technology company Snap has launched its first augmented-reality (AR) glasses for consumers, marking a major push into wearable computing as tech firms race to redefine personal devices in the AI era.
The Canadian government has introduced a digital safety bill that would ban children under the age of 16 from using social media, unless platforms meet specific safety standards.
NASA has named three American astronauts and one Italian astronaut to fly on its Artemis III mission, a major orbital test planned for late next year that will evaluate lunar landing vehicles developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin.
China will send an astronaut to its space station on Sunday for a one-year mission, the longest duration for the country so far. The mission will help study long-duration human physiology in space as China works toward a crewed Moon landing by 2030.
Anxiety over artificial intelligence is hardening among young workers as executives promote faster adoption and companies point to automation in fresh job cuts.
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