Blue Origin has set Sunday, April 19, as the target date for the third flight of its New Glenn rocket. The mission will push the program into a new phase by reusing the same first-stage booster that made history last November as the company’s first successful orbital-class landing.

The launch from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station has a two-hour window that opens at 6:45 a.m. EDT (10:45 UTC) and closes at 8:45 a.m. Live coverage on BlueOrigin.com begins 30 minutes before liftoff. The payload is AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7, a next-generation direct-to-smartphone broadband satellite bound for low Earth orbit.

For Space Coast viewers, the timing is notable. The window opens within minutes of local sunrise. An early-in-the-window liftoff could illuminate the exhaust plume against a dawn sky, the kind of lighting that produces “jellyfish” effects Space Coast residents know well.

The Booster: ‘Never Tell Me The Odds’ Flies Again

“Never Tell Me The Odds” is the same booster that launched NASA’s twin ESCAPADE Mars probes on NG-2 on Nov. 13, 2025. Roughly 10 minutes after liftoff, it touched down on the recovery vessel Jacklyn some 375 miles downrange in the Atlantic. That landing made Blue Origin only the second company in history to recover an orbital-class booster, after SpaceX.

Getting that same hardware back to the pad five months later moves New Glenn from “reusable in theory” to “reusable in practice.” That threshold fundamentally changes the economics of a launch vehicle. CEO Dave Limp said after NG-2 that the company plans to fly its boosters up to 25 times each.

The Payload: BlueBird 7

BlueBird 7 is part of AST SpaceMobile’s next-generation “Block 2” satellites. Each carries a roughly 2,400-square-foot phased array. The company calls it the largest commercial communications array ever deployed in low Earth orbit. The point of all that antenna area is to deliver 4G and 5G broadband directly to ordinary, unmodified smartphones on the ground, with no special hardware required.

AST has more than 50 mobile network operator partners worldwide, including Verizon, AT&T, Vodafone, Orange and Telefónica. The company has secured more than $1.2 billion in contracted revenue commitments. Initial commercial service is slated to begin this year, with full continuous service targeted for 2027. BlueBird 7 is the second next-generation BlueBird to reach orbit. BlueBird 6 launched from India on Dec. 23, 2025.

For Blue Origin, NG-3 is also the first New Glenn flight to carry a primary commercial payload for an external customer.

Launch Viewing

Streaming Source	Availability
Blue Origin YouTube (Official)	Typically ~30 minutes before liftoff
Blue Origin — Mission/Live Page	Updates + embedded stream when live
NASA Live (if simulcast)	TBD; often ~30–60 minutes prior
Spaceflight Now	About one hour prior to liftoff
NASASpaceflight	Live coverage one hour prior to launch
NextSpaceflight — Launch Page	Comprehensive launch info

Here’s a link to a handy location map for viewing Blue Origin launches. The best place to go is the pier at Jetty Park (fee) or the beach areas in Cape Canaveral. Click the map and the page will open in a new tab.