AST SpaceMobile shares sink after Blue Origin rocket strands satellite in wrong orbit
AST SpaceMobile stock fell almost 12% after the BlueBird 7 satellite was stranded too low to operate and had to be de-orbited
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Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket placed a communications satellite into the wrong orbit on Sunday, destroying the payload and sending AST SpaceMobile stock down almost 12% in premarket trading Monday.
According to AST SpaceMobile's statement, BlueBird 7 reached an altitude too shallow to function after the New Glenn upper stage deposited it in an unintended orbit. Although the satellite detached from the rocket and came online, it cannot maintain a viable position and will be directed back into the atmosphere, where it will burn up on reentry.
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Blue Origin called the result an "off-nominal orbit" on X $TWTR and said it was looking into the cause. Since the satellite was declared a total loss, the company has not shared any further updates.
An insurance policy will absorb the financial hit of losing BlueBird 7, AST SpaceMobile said. The company remains committed to its cadence of roughly one launch per one to two months through 2026, and three replacement satellites — BlueBirds 8, 9, and 10 — are expected to be ready for delivery within a month.
Marking its third trip to space, New Glenn departed Cape Canaveral at 7:35 a.m. local time Sunday — and for the first time, the booster it used had previously flown. The first stage made a clean return to a waiting drone ship at sea around ten minutes into flight, but problems emerged approximately two hours later, when Blue Origin disclosed that the upper stage had placed the satellite in the wrong orbit.
New Glenn's program history stretches back well over a decade, with its debut flight arriving only in January 2025 — making Sunday's mishap the most serious setback the vehicle has encountered. The rocket's previous customer mission, flown last November, successfully delivered a pair of NASA Mars-bound spacecraft.
The stakes extend well past a single lost satellite. With Blue Origin vying for a central role in NASA's Artemis program, a demonstrated upper-stage problem complicates that ambition — CEO Dave Limp had publicly pledged that the company would "move heaven and Earth" to accelerate NASA's return to the lunar surface.
Wall Street reacted with caution. Christopher Schoell from UBS said the satellite loss would have only a small direct financial impact on AST, but warned that the company's stock now depends more on how well New Glenn performs in the future. At Clear Street, analyst Greg Pendy kept his buy rating but lowered his price target from $137 to $115, according to CNBC.