Comment by nomilk
2 days ago
The rocket BO sent up today is bigger than SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy!? If I understood correctly, that's really impressive. It would also explain why it appeared slow to rise at the start of the launch.
2 days ago
The rocket BO sent up today is bigger than SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy!? If I understood correctly, that's really impressive. It would also explain why it appeared slow to rise at the start of the launch.
No, it's much smaller (though still a huge rocket). It appears to rise slowly because it accelerates more slowly than Starship (~1.2g vs ~1.5g when clearing the launch tower).
People are saying things about Starship not yet being an orbital rocket because of technicalities. The reality is we have two huge rockets, made by American companies, that can now reach orbit, and that's pretty amazing.
Starship is an orbital rocket, and will achieve actual orbit in few months, but I don’t think they are ready for a customer anytime soon, particularly an external one.
That is entirely by choice, they want to focus their attention on iteration now, which is sensible as falcon 9 and heavy are more than enough to compete today.
For a buyer in next two years it is either falcon heavy or new glen if they want heavy lift today.
No, starship/superheavy is bigger. But it hasn’t technically reached orbit yet.
Also, crucially, this was an operational test by BO whereas Starship and Super Heavy are still in developmental testing. New Glenn will now start launching commercial payloads assuming the outcome doesn’t reveal any problems with the overall launch.
I'm not sure that's a crucial difference. SpaceX doesn't operate the way the rest of the launch industry does. They could keep launching any of the last few iterations if they wanted, and it would be perfectly capable of reaching orbit and carrying a payload. Unclear what size payload from the info we have.
3 replies →
Not just that, they would have launched RocketLab's ESCAPADE on their first flight, if they hadn't missed the launch window.
Thanks for clarifying.
Bigger than Falcon 9, smaller than Falcon Heavy. Smaller than Starship/Super Heavy.
I'm comparing here on payload capacity to LEO