Blue Origin’s New Glenn aims to challenge SpaceX’s launch monopoly Sunday

Blue Origin will try to turn New Glenn into a repeatable competitor to SpaceX on Sunday morning, when Jeff Bezos’ heavy-lift rocket is scheduled to lift off from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite aboard. The launch window runs from 6:45 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. EDT, and Blue Origin plans live coverage to begin 30 minutes before liftoff.

The stakes are bigger than one flight. Blue Origin is planning to reuse New Glenn’s first-stage booster, a key test after the rocket’s second mission on November 13, 2025, landed the booster on the drone ship Jacklyn in the Atlantic Ocean. New Glenn’s first orbital flight came on January 16, 2025, and did not recover the booster. A clean launch and another successful landing would strengthen Blue Origin’s case that it can reliably fly a reusable orbital rocket, the kind of capability that has helped make SpaceX the dominant player in the market.

That matters for pricing and for power. New Glenn stands more than 320 feet, or 98 meters, tall, and Blue Origin says it can carry more than 45 metric tons to low Earth orbit and more than 13 metric tons to geostationary transfer orbit. If Blue Origin can keep landing and reusing the booster, it could pressure launch costs across commercial, NASA and national-security missions, giving government buyers a viable alternative in a market that has been shaped by SpaceX’s scale and cadence.

The payload gives the mission a second layer of consequence. AST SpaceMobile says BlueBird 7 is designed for direct-to-device cellular broadband to unmodified smartphones, with expected peak speeds above 120 Mbps and a phased-array antenna of about 2,400 square feet. That is the giant cell tower promise made concrete: a satellite network that could extend basic coverage into rural dead zones, improve service where towers are sparse and help first responders keep phones connected when terrestrial networks fail.

Blue Origin says the flight is part of a multi-launch agreement with AST SpaceMobile for next-generation Block 2 BlueBird satellites, underscoring that Sunday’s mission is not just a test of a rocket. It is a test of whether SpaceX’s grip on reusable launch, and on the future of space-based connectivity, is finally facing a credible challenge.