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The heavy-lift launch market is being redefined by two next-generation vehicles from the most well-funded private space companies on Earth. SpaceX's Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, designed for Mars colonization. Blue Origin's New Glenn is a more conventionally sized heavy-lifter designed to compete directly with Falcon Heavy while offering a massive 7-meter fairing.
| Metric | SpaceX Starship | Blue Origin New Glenn |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | SpaceX | Blue Origin |
| Vehicle Class | Super heavy-lift (largest rocket ever built) | Heavy-lift |
| Total Height | ~124 m (407 ft) | ~98 m (322 ft) |
| Diameter | 9 m (30 ft) | 7 m (23 ft) |
| Stages | 2 (Super Heavy booster + Starship upper stage) | 2 (1st stage booster + 2nd stage upper stage) |
| First Stage Engines | 33 Raptor (LOX/CH4); Raptor 3 on the V3 vehicles flying since May 2026 | 7 BE-4 (LOX/LNG) |
| Second Stage Engines | 6 Raptor (3 sea-level + 3 vacuum) | 2 BE-3U (LOX/LH2) |
| First Stage Thrust | ~81 MN (18.1 Mlbf, SpaceX figure): most powerful rocket ever | ~17 MN (3.9 Mlbf) |
| Payload to LEO | 100+ t fully reusable (SpaceX design figure; not yet demonstrated) | ~45,000 kg |
| Payload to GTO | No figure published by SpaceX | ~13,000 kg |
| Fairing Diameter | 8 m (entire upper stage is the payload bay) | 7 m |
| Reusability | Both stages designed for full reuse; boosters caught by the tower on test flights; the ship returned from orbit to a Pacific splashdown on Flight 14 (SpaceX) but has not been caught or reflown | First stage reusable (landing on drone ship); 2nd stage expendable |
| Propellant | LOX / liquid methane (both stages) | LOX / LNG (1st stage); LOX / LH2 (2nd stage) |
| First Orbital Flight | Flight 14 (Sep 28, 2026): reached orbit and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, per SpaceX; the 13 test flights before it (from IFT-1, Apr 2023) were suborbital | NG-1 (Jan 2025): reached orbit; booster lost on landing attempt |
| Estimated Launch Cost | No published price; Musk has stated a long-run goal of under $10M per flight | ~$50-70M per flight (estimated) |
| Key Customers | SpaceX (Starlink V3), NASA (Artemis HLS) | NASA (ESCAPADE), Amazon Leo (formerly Kuiper), USSF, Telesat |
| Artemis Role | Starship HLS: one of NASA's two crewed lunar landers; Artemis III (2027) is now an Earth-orbit docking test | Launches Blue Origin's Blue Moon, NASA's second crewed lunar lander (HLS) |
| Manufacturing Location | Starbase, Boca Chica, TX | Rocket factory, Cape Canaveral, FL |
| Key Differentiator | Largest and most powerful rocket ever flown; designed for full reuse; Mars-class vehicle | First reusable heavy-lift competitor to Falcon Heavy; 7m fairing |
Starship and New Glenn are often compared, but they are fundamentally different vehicles designed for different primary missions. Starship is designed as a Mars vehicle: its 100+ ton design payload (fully reused, per SpaceX), fully reusable design, and planned in-space refueling were architected around the requirements of sending large cargoes to Mars. It is still in flight testing: its first 13 flights were suborbital, and on Flight 14, September 28, 2026, it reached orbit for the first time and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, SpaceX reported. The V3 Super Heavy booster is rated by SpaceX at 8,240 tonnes-force (about 81 meganewtons) from 33 Raptor engines, more than twice the Saturn V. SpaceX's booster tower catch, first demonstrated in October 2024, eliminates the weight of landing legs and is meant to enable rapid turnaround.
New Glenn is designed for the commercial launch market: a heavy-lift vehicle with a 7-meter fairing that can deliver 45 tons to LEO at costs significantly below current expendable heavy launchers. The first stage is powered by seven BE-4 engines burning liquid natural gas and liquid oxygen, designed for at least 25 reuses with propulsive landing on a drone ship. The second stage uses hydrogen-fueled BE-3U engines for high-energy upper stage performance. New Glenn's first flight, NG-1 in January 2025, reached orbit successfully, though the booster was lost during the landing attempt: a familiar pattern for first reuse attempts.
New Glenn's most important customer is Amazon, which in April 2022 booked 12 launches with options for 15 more to deploy its Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper) broadband constellation. This anchor contract gives Blue Origin revenue and launch cadence for years. NASA flew the twin ESCAPADE Mars orbiters on New Glenn's second flight in November 2025, and the US Space Force has awarded Blue Origin national security launch missions. Telesat has contracted New Glenn for its Lightspeed constellation deployment.
Starship's customer base is dominated by SpaceX itself: deploying the next generation of Starlink satellites requires Starship's massive payload capacity. NASA contracted Starship as a Human Landing System, originally for the Artemis III and IV landings, in deals worth about $4 billion. For the commercial market, Starship's economics could be transformational: Elon Musk has said he expects the cost per launch to fall below $10 million at maturity, for a vehicle designed to carry more than twice New Glenn's payload. If achieved, this would reshape what is economically viable in space; it has not yet been demonstrated: Starship first reached orbit only in September 2026, on Flight 14, and is still in flight testing. The question for customers is not which vehicle is better in the abstract, but whether Starship's capabilities exceed their needs. Not everyone needs 100 tons to LEO.
The most significant architectural difference between the two vehicles is reusability scope. Starship is designed for full reuse of both stages: no hardware is expendable in the baseline configuration. New Glenn reuses only the first stage, with the second stage expended on every flight. Full reusability is exponentially more challenging (re-entering an upper stage from orbital velocity is far harder than a suborbital booster return), but if SpaceX achieves it reliably, the cost advantage over New Glenn could be decisive. Blue Origin may eventually develop a reusable upper stage, but it is not in the current design. For now, the competition is between SpaceX's revolutionary ambition and Blue Origin's more conventional but proven approach.
Compare launch vehicles and track upcoming launches on SpaceNexus
About 124 metres tall and 9 metres across against 98 metres and 7 metres, with nearly five times the first-stage thrust (about 81 MN from 33 Raptor engines versus 17 MN from 7 BE-4s) and more than twice the design payload to low Earth orbit: 100+ t fully reused (SpaceX) against 45,000 kg. Starship carried its first payload to orbit, 26 Starlink V3 satellites, on Flight 14 in September 2026, per SpaceX.
Starship: its entire 9-metre upper stage is the payload bay, with an 8-metre usable payload diameter. New Glenn's 7-metre fairing is the widest conventional fairing in commercial service and larger than Falcon 9's 5.2 metres.
New Glenn reuses its first stage, landing on a ship at sea, and expends its hydrogen upper stage. Starship is designed to reuse both stages, with the booster caught by the launch tower; full routine reuse is still being worked out.
Starship burns liquid methane and liquid oxygen in both stages. New Glenn burns liquefied natural gas and oxygen in the first stage (BE-4) and liquid hydrogen and oxygen in the second (BE-3U).
New Glenn on its first flight, NG-1, in January 2025. Starship on its 14th flight, on September 28, 2026, SpaceX reported; all 13 test flights before it, from April 2023, flew suborbital trajectories. Our status comparison covers where each stands today.