Blue Origin was founded two years before SpaceX, so by some metrics New Glenn was racing (and lost to) Falcon 1 and Falcon 9. Not the same class as New Glenn, but at least they made it to orbit. Starship still hasn’t done that yet, though that’s more out of an abundance of caution rather than a lack of performance.
First to deploy an orbital payload
Since the payload for New Glenn’s maiden flight will stay attached to the 2nd stage, I assume you wouldn’t count this, even if it is orbital?
First to launch a paying customer
Would you classify operational Starlink satellites under “paying customer”, or only non-SpaceX payloads?
Blue Origin switching from a think tank with a worse DC-X to a legacy prime with a big Vulcan makes the start dates hard to compare.
There are a lot of arbitrary cherry-picked stats going around, like “first orbital semi-reusable aluminum-framed Methalox rocket built in Florida by Capricorns” or whatever they’re on about. Not counting Ring Pathfinder because it doesn’t separate is in the spirit of whatever weird “um ackchyually” firsts we’re tracking now.
I could argue that Starship is already commercial because of the HLS development milestones that have been paid out for test flights.
Blue Origin was founded two years before SpaceX, so by some metrics New Glenn was racing (and lost to) Falcon 1 and Falcon 9. Not the same class as New Glenn, but at least they made it to orbit. Starship still hasn’t done that yet, though that’s more out of an abundance of caution rather than a lack of performance.
Since the payload for New Glenn’s maiden flight will stay attached to the 2nd stage, I assume you wouldn’t count this, even if it is orbital?
Would you classify operational Starlink satellites under “paying customer”, or only non-SpaceX payloads?
Blue Origin switching from a think tank with a worse DC-X to a legacy prime with a big Vulcan makes the start dates hard to compare.
There are a lot of arbitrary cherry-picked stats going around, like “first orbital semi-reusable aluminum-framed Methalox rocket built in Florida by Capricorns” or whatever they’re on about. Not counting Ring Pathfinder because it doesn’t separate is in the spirit of whatever weird “um ackchyually” firsts we’re tracking now.
I could argue that Starship is already commercial because of the HLS development milestones that have been paid out for test flights.