April 19, 2026
Prime delivery to wrong orbit?
Blue Origin's rocket reuse achievement marred by upper stage failure
Booster sticks the landing; upper stage fumbles—fans cheer, skeptics shout “delay”
TLDR: Blue Origin’s big rocket reused its booster and landed, but the second stage left a phone satellite too low, forcing a do-over and an insurance claim. Commenters split between applauding reuse and roasting the “missed delivery,” debating delays to Moon plans, high insurance, and SpaceX-style expectations.
Blue Origin nailed a huge milestone—its big New Glenn booster came back for a second flight and stuck the landing like a space gymnast—but the celebration crashed when the upper stage dropped its satellite in the wrong orbit. The payload, a direct-to-cell phone satellite for AST, powered on but was too low to survive, so it’s getting de-orbited and insured. Cue the comment section fireworks.
On one side, fans are hyped about the reuse win, sharing the touchdown video and calling it proof Bezos’ rocket can now “boomerang.” On the other, the mood is upper’s a downer. The loudest worry: delays. One commenter warned a months-long review could push back Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander for NASA’s Artemis lunar program—aka “this might slip the Moon.”
Then came the wallet talk. Another thread went deep on insurance, with a spicy guess that coverage on a still-new rocket could run sky-high—maybe half the project—while cynics cracked that “at least the refund process works.” And, of course, the SpaceX comparison klaxon blared: one poster declared any rocket that isn’t reusable is “not viable,” framing Blue Origin’s booster success as table stakes, not a trophy.
Jokes flew about Amazon’s “Prime delivery to the wrong orbit,” and the booster’s name—Never Tell Me The Odds—became a meme: it beat the odds, the upper stage didn’t. Space drama, delivered next-day (ish).
Key Points
- •Blue Origin’s New Glenn completed its first successful reflight and landing of an orbital-class booster on its third mission.
- •The booster, “Never Tell Me The Odds,” landed on a platform in the Atlantic less than 10 minutes after liftoff from Cape Canaveral.
- •The upper stage, using two BE-3U engines, underperformed and deployed AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 into an off-nominal, too-low orbit.
- •AST SpaceMobile confirmed the satellite powered on but will be deorbited, with costs expected to be recovered via insurance.
- •Blue Origin aims to leverage New Glenn booster reuse for faster launch cadence, benchmarking against SpaceX’s Falcon 9 operations.