Blue Origin achieves first landing of reused New Glenn rocket booster

Key facts

• Blue Origin successfully landed the reusable booster of the New Glenn rocket at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
• The mission was the third for New Glenn and utilised a booster named Never Tell Me the Odds, which had previously flown in November.
• The rocket carried the BlueBird 7 satellite, owned by AST SpaceMobile, designed for a space-based cellular broadband network.
• BlueBird 7 is the second satellite in the next-generation Block 2 constellation and features the largest commercial communications array deployed in low-Earth orbit.
• The BlueBird 7 satellite was placed into a lower than planned orbit and will be de-orbited.
• Blue Origin announced plans to build a larger and more powerful variant of its rocket called New Glenn 9x4.
• Blue Origin is developing the Blue Moon lander for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and aims to achieve an uncrewed soft lunar landing, Mark 1, this summer.
• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently conducted the successful Artemis II lunar flyby.