Comment by joak

3 days ago

Falcon Heavy is operational, and bigger than New Glenn

Falcon Heavy: 65t to LEO

New Glenn: 45t to LEO

True FH has better LEO performance but NG has better GEO/GTO performance (the main difference coming from the more powerful LH2 upper stage). The difference in fuel in the NG will probably mean a higher cost for NG (amongst a host of other reasons), but the question is by how much. FH also has to fully discard all the Stage 0/1 boosters to achieve 65t LEO. SpaceX on the other hand get much better economies of scale as they launch far more frequently.

Okay, but you forgot to mention these caveats:

- 65t is the fully expendable configuration

- 57t is the core-expendable, side-booster only reuse configuration

- 28t is the all booster reuse configuration

- the payload adapter is the same as falcon 9 and therefore can only carry 18 tons

- there are no plans to build payload adapters to launch payloads heavier than 18 tons

And on the Blue Origin side:

- Blue Origin intends to reuse the booster on every flight

- Future payloads need the full 45 ton payload capacity