The new generation of heavy lift rockets is rising to challenge SpaceX
It can be hard to keep up with this fast-paced yet incredibly complex and highly regulated industry — but everything you need to stay up to date is right here, with links to deeper coverage.
As the global appetite for orbital launches continues to grow, the competition among new and old space companies to build bigger and better launch vehicles is firing up.
It can be hard to keep up with this fast-paced yet incredibly complex and highly regulated industry — but everything you need to stay up to date is right here, with links to deeper coverage.
As a bit of background, it likely won’t surprise you to hear that SpaceX is the undisputed leader in launch, conducting a record 96 launches last year alone. But its supremacy has not cowed a growing number of competitors, who say they can bring much-needed supply and competitive pressure to the market, something that benefits the industry at large.
We’ve surveyed the current medium-, heavy- and super-heavy lift rocket landscape, from vehicles that are currently operational to those rockets yet to fly. We decided to exclude smaller launchers in development — like Stoke Space’s Nova and ABL Space’s RS1 — but even so, this is a fairly broad view. Some of the rockets we discuss below may not compete directly with each other and will vary widely in price. But any one of them coming online would likely mean a shake-up to their vehicle class: Relativity’s Terran R could destabilize Falcon 9’s dominance; New Glenn and Starship could unlock regular travel to the moon and beyond.
If even one succeeds, which is all but a certainty, it will change everything.
Before we begin, some definitions: medium-lift generally means a payload capacity of 2,000-20,000 kilograms (4,400-44,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit; heavy-lift, 20,000-50,000 kilograms (44,000 pounds-110,000 pounds); and super-heavy, which can haul over 50,000 kilograms.
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