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Both vehicles have demonstrated first-stage booster recovery, but as of September 2026 they are in very different states. New Glenn reached orbit on its first flight and has flown three times; its only launch pad is out of service after a ground-test explosion. Starship flew 13 suborbital test flights, then reached orbit for the first time on Flight 14, September 28, 2026, SpaceX reported.
| Metric | Starship | New Glenn |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | SpaceX | Blue Origin |
| Vehicle Class | Super heavy-lift (largest rocket ever built) | Heavy-lift |
| First Orbital Flight | Flight 14, Sep 28, 2026: reached orbit and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, per SpaceX (13 suborbital test flights before it, from IFT-1, Apr 2023) | NG-1, Jan 2025: reached orbit; booster lost on landing attempt |
| Status (Sep 2026) | In flight testing: 13 suborbital flights, then the first orbital flight (Flight 14, Sep 28); no missions for outside customers yet | Grounded: LC-36, its only orbital pad, is being rebuilt after a static-fire explosion |
| Most Recent Flight | Flight 14 (Sep 28, 2026): first orbital flight, per SpaceX; deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites (all in contact), deorbited after about 3 hours in orbit and splashed down in the Pacific; booster splashed down in the Gulf | NG-3 (Apr 19, 2026): first booster reflight, landed; upper stage left payload in wrong orbit; last flight before the pad was lost |
| Booster Recovery Track Record | Tower catches on earlier test flights (first on Flight 5, Oct 2024); on Flights 12 and 13 the new V3 booster made hard splashdowns in the Gulf | First-ever New Glenn booster reuse achieved on NG-3: landed a previously-flown booster for the second time |
| Upper-Stage Recovery | Never caught: the Flight 13 ship splashed down intact in the Indian Ocean and was recovered afloat a month later; the Flight 14 ship returned from orbit to a Pacific splashdown (no catch was planned) | Expendable second stage (no reuse in current design) |
| Payload to LEO | 100+ t in a fully reusable configuration (SpaceX design figure; not yet demonstrated) | ~45,000 kg |
| Payload to GTO | No figure published by SpaceX | ~13,000 kg |
| Diameter / Fairing | 9 m (entire upper stage is the payload bay) | 7 m fairing |
| Propellant | LOX / liquid methane (both stages) | LOX / LNG (1st stage); LOX / LH2 (2nd stage) |
| First Stage Engines | 33 Raptor (LOX/CH4); Raptor 3 on the V3 vehicles flying since May 2026 | 7 BE-4 (LOX/LNG) |
| Launch Site(s) | Starbase, Boca Chica, TX | LC-36, Cape Canaveral SFS, FL (sole pad: currently under repair) |
| Current Blocker | In-orbit propellant transfer and a ship catch, neither attempted yet; orbit was first reached on Flight 14 (Sep 28, 2026) | LC-36 rebuild after May 28, 2026 static-fire explosion; return to flight targeted before end of 2026 |
| Manifest Impact | Starlink V3 deployment into the constellation began on Flight 14 (26 satellites, Sep 28, 2026, per SpaceX); SpaceX has not yet said they are in service | ~24-mission Amazon Leo (formerly Kuiper) manifest and Blue Moon MK1 lunar lander frozen until LC-36 reopens |
| Key Customers | SpaceX (Starlink V3), NASA (Artemis HLS) | Amazon Leo (formerly Kuiper), NASA (ESCAPADE, already delivered Nov 2025), USSF, Telesat |
Flight 13 (July 24, 2026) was Starship's thirteenth test flight and, like every flight before it, flew a suborbital trajectory. It released 20 real Starlink V3 satellites on that path, where they were expected to burn up on reentry about 20 minutes later. The ship made a soft splashdown and came to rest intact in the Indian Ocean; SpaceX recovered it afloat about a month later. The Super Heavy booster made a hard splashdown in the Gulf after only some of its landing-burn engines relit.
Flight 14, on September 28, 2026, was the first orbital flight of Starship, SpaceX reported: the ship entered orbit, deployed all 26 Starlink V3 satellites into the constellation (the Starlink team made contact with all 26), performed a deorbit burn after about 3 hours in orbit (the plan had been a flight of nearly 10 hours) and splashed down in the Pacific. The booster splashed down in the Gulf of America; no catch was planned. Catching the ship and full, rapid reuse are still ahead. See the full Starship flight tracker for live updates.
New Glenn has been flying since January 2025, when NG-1 reached orbit on its debut but lost its booster during the landing attempt. Blue Origin then landed a booster successfully on NG-2, which delivered NASA's twin ESCAPADE Mars orbiters in November 2025, and reused that milestone in April 2026: NG-3 landed a previously-flown booster for a second time, the first-ever reuse of a New Glenn first stage, and arguably ahead of where SpaceX was at the equivalent stage of Falcon 9's program. NG-3's upper stage did suffer a thrust anomaly that left AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird-7 satellite in a lower-than-planned orbit.
The progress stalled hard on May 28, 2026, when a static-fire test exploded, destroying a booster and fueled second stage and heavily damaging LC-36: New Glenn's only orbital launch pad. Blue Origin is rebuilding the pad and has targeted a return to flight before the end of 2026, but every month LC-36 stays down, the roughly 24-mission Amazon Leo (formerly Kuiper) manifest and the Blue Moon MK1 lunar lander slip further behind schedule.
On paper, Starship and New Glenn still look like a payload-class mismatch: Starship's design figure of 100+ tons to orbit, fully reused (SpaceX), dwarfs New Glenn's ~45 tons, and its 9-meter payload volume has no real competitor, and Starship carried its first payload to orbit on Flight 14 in September 2026. The more urgent comparison in September 2026 is flight readiness: Starship has now reached orbit, while New Glenn cannot fly at all until LC-36 is rebuilt. Blue Origin's underlying engineering trajectory looks strong (a reused booster is a genuine first for the vehicle), but a single-pad heavy-lift program is one ground anomaly away from exactly this outcome. Until LC-36 reopens, New Glenn's technical merits are on hold.
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It depends on the measure. New Glenn has reached orbit (on its first flight) and reflew a booster on its third, but that flight's upper stage failed to deliver its payload, and the vehicle is grounded until LC-36 is rebuilt after the May 28, 2026 static-fire explosion. Starship reached orbit for the first time on its 14th flight, September 28, 2026, SpaceX reported, after 13 suborbital test flights; it has not yet attempted in-orbit propellant transfer.
Two events. The FAA grounded it after NG-3 on April 19, 2026, when a thrust anomaly on the second upper-stage burn left the payload in the wrong orbit. Then on May 28 a booster and its fueled upper stage exploded during a static fire on Launch Complex 36 (Blue Origin traced it to a BE-4 main oxygen valve), badly damaging the rocket's only pad. Return to flight is targeted before the end of 2026.
Yes: on NG-3, April 19, 2026, it flew the booster from NG-2 and landed it again on the ship Jacklyn, the first heavy-lift booster reuse by anyone other than SpaceX. The booster lost on May 28 was a different vehicle.
Not yet. It is still in flight testing. Its first 13 flights were suborbital; Flight 14, on September 28, 2026, reached orbit and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, SpaceX reported. Catching the ship at the tower and, for Artemis, in-orbit propellant transfer have not been attempted.
Amazon Leo's New Glenn manifest and the Blue Moon lunar landers are frozen until LC-36 reopens; Amazon's other launch providers carry more of the load meanwhile. Artemis III's docking test in 2027 needs a Blue Moon test article on orbit, so the pad schedule now matters to NASA too.