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In the world of commercial spaceflight, two massive rockets are poised to transform how we access space – Blue Origin’s New Glenn and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. Both vehicles represent the next leap in rocket technology, offering unprecedented capabilities at a lower cost through reusability. But how do these behemoths really compare? Let’s take an in-depth look at New Glenn and Falcon Heavy across key dimensions like design, performance, mission profiles, and competitiveness.
Overview of New Glenn and Falcon Heavy
Blue Origin New Glenn
New Glenn is a heavy-lift orbital launch vehicle currently under development by Blue Origin. Named after pioneering astronaut John Glenn, the rocket is designed for operational reusability to dramatically reduce launch costs. The vehicle consists of a reusable first stage powered by seven BE-4 engines and an expendable second stage with two BE-3U engines. New Glenn is planned to be available in two variants:
- A two-stage version with a height of 98 meters (321 ft) and a 7-meter (23 ft) diameter payload fairing
- A three-stage version with a height of 95 meters (313 ft), adding a third stage for high-energy orbits and interplanetary missions
Blue Origin is constructing New Glenn at its sprawling rocket factory in Florida, near Launch Complex 36 which the company leased and rebuilt to support New Glenn missions. An initial launch is expected no earlier than late 2024.
SpaceX Falcon Heavy
Falcon Heavy is a partially reusable heavy-lift rocket developed and operated by SpaceX. It is derived from the Falcon 9 vehicle and consists of a strengthened Falcon 9 first stage core with two additional Falcon 9 first stages acting as strap-on boosters. This configuration gives Falcon Heavy the highest payload capacity of any operational rocket.
With a height of 70 meters (230 ft) and a total of 27 Merlin 1D engines across its three cores, Falcon Heavy can lift over 63,800 kg (140,700 lb) to low Earth orbit in its fully expendable mode. However, SpaceX has optimized Falcon Heavy to recover all three first stage cores for reuse, which reduces its payload capacity but enables much lower launch costs.
Falcon Heavy completed its maiden flight in February 2018 and has since launched numerous operational missions for commercial and government customers from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Key Specifications Comparison
| Specification | New Glenn | Falcon Heavy |
|---|---|---|
| Height | 98 m / 321 ft | 70 m / 230 ft |
| Diameter | 7 m / 23 ft | 3.7 m / 12 ft |
| Stages | 2 | 2 |
| LEO Payload (expendable) | N/A | 63,800 kg / 140,700 lb |
| LEO Payload (reusable) | 45,000 kg / 99,000 lb | 30,000 kg / 66,000 lb |
| GTO Payload (expendable) | N/A | 26,700 kg / 58,900 lb |
| GTO Payload (reusable) | 13,600 kg / 30,000 lb | 8,000 kg / 17,600 lb |
| Payload Volume | 228 m³ / 8,050 ft³ | 145 m³ / 5,120 ft³ |
| Fairing Diameter | 7 m / 23 ft | 5.2 m / 17 ft |
| Fairing Height | 22 m / 72 ft | 13.1 m / 43 ft |
| First Stage Engines | 7 x BE-4 | 27 x Merlin 1D |
| Second Stage Engines | 2 x BE-3U | 1 x Merlin 1D Vacuum |
| Propellants | LNG / LOX | RP-1 / LOX |
| Liftoff Thrust | 17.1 MN / 3.85 Mlbf | 22.8 MN / 5.13 Mlbf |
| Reusability | Booster only | Boosters + Core |
As evident from the table, New Glenn has the edge in payload capacity to both LEO and GTO, in reusable mode. Furthermore, New Glenn’s larger 7-meter fairing provides more volume for bulky payloads. New Glenn also uses LNG fuel which is cleaner and more efficient than Falcon Heavy’s RP-1 kerosene.
Reusability Approach
Both New Glenn and Falcon Heavy are designed for partial rocket reuse to enable lower launch costs. However, their approaches to reusability differ in a few key aspects:
New Glenn Reusability
Blue Origin is designing New Glenn’s first stage to be reusable up to 25 times. After stage separation, the booster will perform a vertical landing on a moving ship, similar to SpaceX’s drone ship landings. Blue Origin has already demonstrated this landing technology on a smaller scale with its New Shepard suborbital rocket.
However, New Glenn’s second stage will not be reusable. Blue Origin has stated that they don’t believe the performance hit and added complexity required for second stage reuse is worth it for their target markets and missions.
Falcon Heavy Reusability
SpaceX has taken reusability to the next level with Falcon Heavy. All three first stage cores – the two side boosters and the central core – are designed to land vertically for reuse. The side boosters return to land at SpaceX’s Landing Zones while the center core lands on a drone ship further downrange.
SpaceX has already demonstrated this triple landing feat on Falcon Heavy’s first commercial mission in April 2019. The two side boosters from that mission were reused on a subsequent Falcon Heavy launch, showcasing the rapid reusability of the system.
Like New Glenn, Falcon Heavy’s second stage is expendable. SpaceX briefly considered making it reusable but abandoned that approach to focus on its fully reusable Starship vehicle instead.
Mission Capabilities and Markets
New Glenn Missions
With its heavy lift capacity and voluminous fairing, New Glenn is well suited for a variety of missions:
- Launching large geosynchronous satellites, either directly to GEO or to GTO
- Deploying sizeable satellite constellations to LEO
- Lofting exploration missions to the Moon and beyond
- Carrying cargo and crew to the International Space Station (ISS)
Blue Origin has already signed up several commercial customers for New Glenn, including Eutelsat, mu Space, SKY Perfect JSAT, and Telesat. The company also has a launch contract with the U.S. Space Force.
Falcon Heavy Missions
Falcon Heavy’s unique capability is launching very heavy payloads to high-energy trajectories. Key applications include:
- Launching large national security payloads directly to GEO for the U.S. military
- Injecting interplanetary probes and telescopes to Earth escape trajectories
- Deploying big batches of satellites to LEO and GTO
- Sending cargo and crew to the Moon and Mars
SpaceX has won several high-profile government contracts for Falcon Heavy, such as launching NASA’s Psyche asteroid probe, Europa Clipper mission, and the GOES-U weather satellite.
Competitiveness and Outlook
New Glenn and Falcon Heavy are set to be the workhorses of the heavy-lift market in the coming years. Both vehicles offer distinct capabilities and advantages:
- New Glenn’s main strengths are its large payload volume, clean-burning methane engines, and robust reusability of up to 25 flights per booster. This could make it very competitive for high-volume satellite constellation launches. However, New Glenn has yet to prove itself in flight and is still several years away from operational service.
- Falcon Heavy, on the other hand, is flight-proven and has already demonstrated rapid reusability. Its ability to recover all three first stage boosters enables very low marginal launch costs.
Ultimately, the competitiveness of New Glenn vs Falcon Heavy will depend on the target market and specific mission requirements. For some applications like high-volume LEO constellations, New Glenn could be the more economical choice. For others like interplanetary exploration, Falcon Heavy remains the only commercial option with the necessary performance.
Looking ahead, both vehicles will likely see strong demand in the booming commercial space sector. As satellite operators build ever larger and heavier spacecraft, the capabilities of New Glenn and Falcon Heavy will be in high demand. Additionally, NASA’s Artemis program and other government exploration initiatives will require the unmatched power of these heavy-lift rockets.
In the longer term, the future of New Glenn and Falcon Heavy will be shaped by emerging super heavy-lift vehicles like SpaceX’s Starship and NASA’s Space Launch System. But for now, New Glenn and Falcon Heavy are set to dominate the heavy-lift market with their unique capabilities and low launch costs enabled by reusability. The competition between Blue Origin and SpaceX will only further accelerate innovation and push the boundaries of what’s possible in the commercial space domain.
10 Best-Selling Books About Elon Musk
Elon Musk
Walter Isaacson’s biography follows Elon Musk’s life from his upbringing in South Africa through the building of PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and other ventures. The book focuses on decision-making under pressure, engineering-driven management, risk tolerance, and the interpersonal dynamics that shaped Musk’s companies and public persona, drawing a continuous timeline from early influences to recent business and product cycles.
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
Ashlee Vance presents a narrative biography that links Musk’s personal history to the founding and scaling of Tesla and SpaceX. The book emphasizes product ambition, factory and launch-site realities, leadership style, and the operational constraints behind headline achievements. It also covers setbacks, funding pressures, and the management choices that made Musk both influential in technology and controversial in public life.
Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX
Eric Berger reconstructs SpaceX’s earliest phase, when technical failures, schedule slips, and financing risk threatened the company’s survival. The book centers on Musk’s role as founder and chief decision-maker while highlighting engineers, mission teams, and launch operations. Readers get a detailed account of how early launch campaigns, investor expectations, and engineering tradeoffs shaped SpaceX’s culture and trajectory.
Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets That Launched a Second Space Age
Also by Eric Berger, this book explains how SpaceX pushed reusable rocketry from uncertain experiments into repeatable operations. It tracks the technical, financial, and organizational choices behind landing attempts, iterative design changes, and reliability improvements. Musk is presented as a central driver of deadlines and risk posture, while the narrative stays grounded in how teams translated high-level direction into hardware and flight outcomes.
Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century
Tim Higgins examines Tesla’s transformation from a niche automaker into a mass-production contender, with Musk as the primary strategist and public face. The book covers internal conflict, production bottlenecks, financing stress, executive turnover, and the consequences of making manufacturing speed a defining business strategy. It reads as a business history of Tesla that ties corporate governance and product decisions directly to Musk’s leadership approach.
Insane Mode: How Elon Musk’s Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution
Hamish McKenzie tells Tesla’s story through the lens of product launches, market skepticism, and the organizational strain of rapid scaling. Musk appears as both brand amplifier and operational catalyst, while the narrative highlights the role of teams and supply chains in making electric vehicles mainstream. The book is written for nontechnical readers who want context on EV adoption, Tesla’s business model, and Musk’s influence on expectations in the auto industry.
Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors
Edward Niedermeyer offers an investigative look at Tesla’s early and mid-stage growth, emphasizing the tension between engineering reality, marketing narratives, and investor expectations. Musk’s leadership is examined alongside product delays, quality concerns, and strategic messaging, with attention to how a high-profile CEO can shape both market perception and internal priorities. The result is a critical business narrative focused on what it took to keep Tesla expanding.
SpaceX: Elon Musk and the Final Frontier
Brad Bergan presents an accessible overview of SpaceX’s development and its place in the modern space industry, with Musk as the central figure connecting financing, engineering goals, and public messaging. The book describes major programs, launch milestones, and the economic logic of lowering launch costs. It also situates Musk’s influence within the broader ecosystem of government contracts, commercial customers, and competitive pressure.
The Elon Musk Method: Business Principles from the World’s Most Powerful Entrepreneur
Randy Kirk frames Musk as a case study in execution, product focus, and decision-making speed, translating observed patterns into general business lessons. The book discusses leadership behaviors, hiring expectations, prioritization, and the use of aggressive timelines, while keeping the focus on how Musk’s style affects organizational output. It is positioned for readers interested in entrepreneurship and management practices associated with Musk-led companies.
Elon Musk: A Mission to Save the World
Anna Crowley Redding provides a biography-style account that emphasizes Musk’s formative experiences and the stated motivations behind Tesla and SpaceX. The book presents his career as a sequence of high-stakes projects, explaining how big technical goals connect to business choices and public visibility. It is written in clear language for general readers who want a straightforward narrative of Musk’s life, work, and the controversies that follow disruptive companies.
10 Best-Selling SpaceX Books
Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX
This narrative-driven SpaceX history focuses on the company’s earliest, most uncertain years, following the engineering, leadership, and operational decisions behind the first Falcon 1 attempts. It emphasizes how tight budgets, launch failures, and rapid iteration shaped SpaceX’s culture and set the foundation for later achievements in commercial spaceflight and reusable rockets.
Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age
Centered on the push to land and reuse orbital-class boosters, this book explains how SpaceX turned Falcon 9 reusability from a risky concept into a repeatable operational system. It connects engineering tradeoffs, test failures, launch cadence, and business pressure into a clear account of how reuse affected pricing, reliability, and the modern launch market.
SpaceX: Making Commercial Spaceflight a Reality
Written in an accessible explanatory style, this overview links SpaceX’s design philosophy to outcomes such as simpler manufacturing, vertically integrated production, and faster development cycles. It also frames how NASA partnerships and fixed-price contracting helped reshape the U.S. launch industry, with SpaceX as a central example of commercial spaceflight becoming routine.
SpaceX: Starship to Mars – The First 20 Years
This SpaceX book places Starship in the broader arc of the company’s first two decades, tying early Falcon programs to the scale of fully reusable systems. It explains why Starship’s architecture differs from Falcon 9, what has to change to support high flight rates, and how long-duration goals like Mars transport drive requirements for heat shields, engines, and rapid turnaround.
SpaceX’s Dragon: America’s Next Generation Spacecraft
Focusing on the Dragon spacecraft family, this account explains capsule design choices, cargo and crew mission needs, and how spacecraft operations differ from rocket operations. It provides a readable path through docking, life-support constraints, recovery logistics, and reliability considerations that matter when transporting people and supplies to orbit through NASA-linked programs.
SpaceX: Elon Musk and the Final Frontier
This photo-rich SpaceX history uses visuals and concise text to trace milestones from early launches to newer systems, making it suitable for readers who want context without technical density. It highlights facilities, vehicles, and mission highlights while explaining how Falcon 9, Dragon, and Starship fit into SpaceX’s long-term strategy in the private space industry.
SpaceX From The Ground Up: 7th Edition
Designed as a structured guide, this book summarizes SpaceX vehicles, launch sites, and mission progression in a reference-friendly format. It is especially useful for readers who want a clear overview of Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Dragon variants, and Starship development context, with an emphasis on how launch services and cadence influence SpaceX’s market position.
Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race
This industry narrative explains how SpaceX emerged alongside other private space efforts, showing how capital, contracts, and competitive pressure influenced design and launch decisions. SpaceX appears as a recurring anchor point as the book covers the shift from government-dominated space activity to a market where reusable rockets and rapid development cycles reshape expectations.
The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos
This book compares leadership styles and program choices across major private space players, with SpaceX as a principal thread in the story. It connects SpaceX’s execution pace to broader outcomes such as launch market disruption, NASA partnership models, and the changing economics of access to orbit, offering a balanced, journalistic view for nontechnical readers.
Space Race 2.0: SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, NASA, and the Privatization of the Final Frontier
This wide-angle look at privatized space activity places SpaceX within an ecosystem of competitors, partners, and regulators. It clarifies how NASA procurement, launch infrastructure, and commercial passenger and cargo missions intersect, while showing how SpaceX’s approach to reuse and production scale helped define expectations for the modern commercial spaceflight era.
