Blue Origin, the U.S. space company of billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, successfully reused and recovered a booster for its New Glenn rocket launched from Florida on Sunday (19 April), in the latest chapter of its intensifying rivalry with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The rocket lifted off at around 7:25 a.m. ET (1125 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, with the booster touchdown coming about 10 minutes later.
The company has launched the New Glenn twice before, but only with new rocket boosters.
However, the uncrewed mission also faced a setback as the rocket failed to deploy a communications satellite into a high enough orbit.
The satellite designed by Texas firm AST was part of the company’s effort to build a space-based cellular broadband network, similar to SpaceX’s Starlink.
"While the satellite separated from the launch vehicle and powered on, the altitude is too low to sustain operations with its on-board thruster technology and will (be) de-orbited," AST said.
In a response to a post on X from Bezos regarding Sunday's launch, Musk congratulated him.
Sunday's mission, the third for New Glenn, was key to demonstrating that it has a reliable booster reuse capability and can compete with the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The rocket’s booster is dubbed "Never Tell Me the Odds," a nod to Han Solo’s line in the film ‘Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.’
The mission came 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.
SpaceX is building a special version of its Starship designed to land astronauts on the moon, as part of NASA’s Artemis programme.
Blue Origin is developing a more traditional lander and aims to achieve an uncrewed soft lunar landing this summer.
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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Iran said on Sunday (10 May) that it had sent its response to a U.S. proposal aimed at launching peace talks to end the war, as signs of tentative movement emerged around the Strait of Hormuz despite renewed security incidents across the Gulf.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has cited Azerbaijan as an example of what he described as a sovereign foreign policy, recalling remarks made by President Ilham Aliyev during talks in Yerevan, where he sharply criticised resolutions adopted against his country by the European Parliament.
Russia is holding a significantly scaled-back Victory Day parade in Moscow on 9 May 2026, reflecting heightened security concerns and the ongoing war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year.
Efforts to end the U.S.-Iran war appeared to stall as the two sides exchanged fire in and around the Strait of Hormuz. A reported CIA assessment suggested Tehran could withstand a U.S. naval blockade for months despite mounting sanctions and renewed Gulf attacks.
British paratroopers and military medics have been deployed to Tristan da Cunha after a suspected hantavirus case was confirmed, as first evacuation flights carrying passengers from the stricken MV Hondius cruise ship left Tenerife for Madrid and Paris.
Russia is holding a significantly scaled-back Victory Day parade in Moscow on 9 May 2026, reflecting heightened security concerns and the ongoing war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year.
Indonesian rescue teams have located two Singaporeans who went missing after Mount Dukono erupted on Friday (8 May) on the island of Halmahera, though authorities say it remains unclear whether they are alive.
The U.S. Defense Department has released dozens of previously classified files on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) on Friday (8 May), following an order from President Donald Trump. U.S. officials described as a push for “unprecedented transparency”.
A robotics startup says it has built an AI “brain” that can teach humanoid robots new physical skills in days rather than months, as the race to deploy human-shaped machines in factories and warehouses accelerates.
Apple and Meta have publicly opposed a Canadian bill they say could force technology companies to weaken encryption on devices and online services if it becomes law.
European Union countries and European Parliament lawmakers have agreed on a softened version of the bloc’s landmark artificial intelligence rules, including delayed implementation, in a move critics say reflects growing concessions to major technology firms.
Almaty is hosting GITEX AI Kazakhstan 2026 two-day event, drawing global tech firms and investors as Central Asia gains attention as a fast developing digital market. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev visited the GITEX AI Central Asia & Caucasus exhibition in Almaty on 4 May.
A humanoid robot called Sophia took an unusual place at the heart of a classical concert in Hong Kong on Wednesday (29 April), as she performed alongside a live orchestra for the first time.
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