Starship vs New Glenn
Starship and New Glenn are the two next-generation reusable heavy-lifters from American commercial space — and the two most different answers to the same question. SpaceX's Starship pursues full reuse of both stages, stainless-steel construction, and a flight-test campaign that iterates in public. Blue Origin's New Glenn reuses only its first stage, keeps a conventional expendable upper stage, and followed a slower, more traditional development path.
Both are methane-fuelled and both target the same heavy-launch market, but their philosophies could not differ more: Starship bets on radical reuse economics, New Glenn on conservative, incremental reliability.
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| LEO Capacity(kg) | 100,000 | 45,000 |
| GTO Capacity(kg) | — | 13,000 |
| Height(m) | 124.4 | 98 |
| Diameter(m) | 9 | 7 |
| Launch Mass(t) | 5,000 | — |
| Total Launches | 0 | 3 |
| Success Rate | — | 67% |
| Landing Success | — | 67% |
| Status | Active | Active |
| Reusable | Expendable | ♻ Reusable |
Head-to-head charts
Payload capacity(metric tons)
Size
Launch record
The short answer
Starship aims to rewrite launch economics with full reuse; New Glenn aims to be the dependable conventional alternative. Watch flight rates — that is where the bet gets settled.
More in Next-Generation Heavy Lift
Data: Launch Library 2 (TheSpaceDevs) — served from the SpaceRocket launch database.