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.
“The final mishap report identified the direct cause of the mishap as a cryogenic leak that froze a hydraulic line and led to a thrust anomaly during the second-stage engine burn,” the agency stated.
“Blue Origin identified nine corrective actions to prevent reoccurrence of the event,” the FAA added, but did not disclose the corrective actions. “The FAA will verify that Blue Origin implements corrective actions prior to the launch of the next New Glenn mission.”
Blue Origin did not disclose additional details but said it was preparing for its next New Glenn launch, NG-4. Earlier in the day, Dave Limp, chief executive of the company, posted a video of a new vehicle being installed on a transporter-erector. “Next stop integrated hotfire,” he wrote.
Blue Origin has not disclosed a schedule for the NG-4 mission or the customer. AST SpaceMobile, the customer for NG-3, recently shipped three BlueBird satellites to Florida for launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 in June.
“An upper-stage anomaly like this is not uncommon early in programs, and we feel optimistic about them getting back to the pad soon,” Scott Wisniewski, AST’s chief strategy officer, said in a May 11 earnings call. He said the next New Glenn launch for AST will carry four BlueBird satellites but did not disclose a timeframe for that mission.