Can the New Glenn launch more times than the Falcon 9 in the first 10 years?

[Tywin]

Well, if I count correctly, in the first 10 years of the Falcon 9's life it was launched 86 times, can the New Glenn in its first 10 years be launched more times?

[daedalus1]

No.
Blue is slow, whatever it does.

[kevinof]

So between 8 and 10 times per year? for 10 years or one every 5-6 weeks? Nope. Don't believe they will ever reach that cadence.

[spacenut]

ISS will not be operational by the time New Glenn gets to launching.  SpaceX got supply and crew contracts with NASA as well as Air Force, now Space Force launches.  Vulcan will also be flying soon and has gotten contracts.  The most New Glenn has going is their own satellite launches, and maybe, if NASA contracts some money, the private space station.  Also, New Glenn's capability is similar to Falcon Heavy, which does not fly often.  Another thing is Starship/Superheavy will be flying, getting contracts, etc.  So no New Glenn is late to the game and probably will not fly often, unless the Artemis program is extended and/or expanded. 

[trimeta]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Project Kuiper substantially fewer satellites than Starlink? And New Glenn should in theory be able to carry more satellites per launch. So far fewer launches overall.

Unless...are you specifically asking "can New Glenn launch more in its first ten years than Falcon 9 did with its first ten years (e.g., 2010-2020)"? That's marginally more reasonable, the SpaceX steamroller didn't really kick in until 2017. And arguably Kuiper will play a bigger role in New Glenn's early launches than Starlink played in early Falcon 9 launches.

[DanClemmensen]

F9 launched 77 times in 2010-2019 . Is this the period in question?  FH launched 3 times. Do these count or not?

If instead of "F9" you mean "F9 block 5", the number changes a lot. First alunch was in 2018, and there have been about 141 launches since.

F9's huge advantage now is their captive priority-2 customer: Starlink. That allows them to fill every launch slot that was not sold to a primary (i.e., paying) customer, but this did not start until 2019, so only three of the 77 F9 launches were Starlink.

New Glenn will also have a captive priority-2 customer: Kuiper. I voted "No" for two reasons. First, I don't think New Glenn will attract many primary customers, because I think Starship will be a lot cheaper. Second, I don't think Kuiper will expand past its initial 3276 satellites, about half of which will launch on Atlas V, Vulcan, and Arianspace prior to availability of New Glenn. Even at the small number of 50 Kuipers per launch, that's only 33 Kuiper launches.

[Tywin]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Project Kuiper substantially fewer satellites than Starlink? And New Glenn should in theory be able to carry more satellites per launch. So far fewer launches overall.

Unless...are you specifically asking "can New Glenn launch more in its first ten years than Falcon 9 did with its first ten years (e.g., 2010-2020)"? That's marginally more reasonable, the SpaceX steamroller didn't really kick in until 2017. And arguably Kuiper will play a bigger role in New Glenn's early launches than Starlink played in early Falcon 9 launches.

Exactly the first 10 years of both rockets...

[Tywin]

F9 launched 77 times in 2010-2019 . Is this the period in question?  FH launched 3 times. Do these count or not?

If instead of "F9" you mean "F9 block 5", the number changes a lot. First alunch was in 2018, and there have been about 141 launches since.

F9's huge advantage now is their captive priority-2 customer: Starlink. That allows them to fill every launch slot that was not sold to a primary (i.e., paying) customer, but this did not start until 2019, so only three of the 77 F9 launches were Starlink.

New Glenn will also have a captive priority-2 customer: Kuiper. I voted "No" for two reasons. First, I don't think New Glenn will attract many primary customers, because I think Starship will be a lot cheaper. Second, I don't think Kuiper will expand past its initial 3276 satellites, about half of which will launch on Atlas V, Vulcan, and Arianspace prior to availability of New Glenn. Even at the small number of 50 Kuipers per launch, that's only 33 Kuiper launches.

Well, I read that Kuiper already fille for 7600 satellites with the FCC in a second fase...

[Comga]

Look at the graph in this post.
Out of six “western” rockets, the Falcon 9 has by far the greatest launch rate record.
This poll asks if people believe that Blue Origin “gradiatum fetociter”, will be more than twice as fast out of the gate as ULA and Japan and ESA. “Faster than SpaceX” in the first ten years might be greater than the SUM of all three of those.

Don’t be absurd.
I’d make a 3:1 bet against Blue, to the benefit of the NSF Student Scholarship Fund, but I doubt we will be around or interested in Blue in ten years.  That’s a long time.

[FishInferno]

No.

Blue Origin, despite being a "new space" company, has essentially modeled its business after old space companies. I see no reason to assume that will change in the coming years.

I find Blue Origin to be a sad story. I was very excited when they announced New Glenn and thought there might finally be a true competitor to SpaceX. Now it looks like Relativity or Rocket Lab will fill that role. I want so badly to be inspired by BO's vision, but they haven't really done much to realize it.

[DanClemmensen]

F9 launched 77 times in 2010-2019 . Is this the period in question?  FH launched 3 times. Do these count or not?

If instead of "F9" you mean "F9 block 5", the number changes a lot. First alunch was in 2018, and there have been about 141 launches since.

F9's huge advantage now is their captive priority-2 customer: Starlink. That allows them to fill every launch slot that was not sold to a primary (i.e., paying) customer, but this did not start until 2019, so only three of the 77 F9 launches were Starlink.

New Glenn will also have a captive priority-2 customer: Kuiper. I voted "No" for two reasons. First, I don't think New Glenn will attract many primary customers, because I think Starship will be a lot cheaper. Second, I don't think Kuiper will expand past its initial 3276 satellites, about half of which will launch on Atlas V, Vulcan, and Arianspace prior to availability of New Glenn. Even at the small number of 50 Kuipers per launch, that's only 33 Kuiper launches.

Well, I read that Kuiper already fille for 7600 satellites with the FCC in a second fase...

And the government of Rwanda filed with ITU for a constellation of 375,000 satellites. An expansion of Kuiper may be slightly more realistic, but in my opinion not much.

I base this on my personal opinion that Starlink will suck up all of the consumer customers based on its first-mover advantage. Kuiper will be left primarily with super-high-bandwidth datacenter and backbone interconnections for Amazon and possibly others. There is no reason you should agree with my personal opinion.

[Vahe231991]

I doubt that the New Glenn will launch more times than the Falcon 9 in the first ten years.

[deltaV]

I'm assuming that the 10 years starts at the first liftoff. New Glenn will most likely be the cheapest American launcher per kilogram of payload that's made by someone other than SpaceX so New Glenn could easily get a lot of business from customers that are avoiding SpaceX, e.g. because they don't want a launch monopoly or they compete with Starlink. But Blue may continue stumbling or the demand for non-SpaceX launches may not be quite enough to reach 86 launches. I answered "maybe".

[Robert_the_Doll]

Well, if I count correctly, in the first 10 years of the Falcon 9's life it was launched 86 times, can the New Glenn in its first 10 years be launched more times?

To this I will simply ask "Does it need to?"

[freddo411]

These poorly worded, wildly speculative polls are annoying me.

"Can the New Glenn launch more times than the Falcon 9 in the first 10 years of live?"

"Can"?   ... well of course this answer is yes, depends on x,y and z.  No law of physics preventing that from happening.   Should be "will"

Typo in the last word:  live should be life. ..  Or, better yet, the question should make clear the comparison between the first 10 years of Falcon and the first 10 years of NG.


Please take some time to compose a thoughtful, well worded question.

[whitelancer64]

*snip*
The most New Glenn has going is their own satellite launches, and maybe, if NASA contracts some money, the private space station.
*snip*

New Glenn has 5 other customers with launch contracts: Eutelsat, muSpace, OneWeb (5 launches), SKY Perfect JSAT, and Telesat (multiple launches).

[Tywin]

These poorly worded, wildly speculative polls are annoying me.

"Can the New Glenn launch more times than the Falcon 9 in the first 10 years of live?"

"Can"?   ... well of course this answer is yes, depends on x,y and z.  No law of physics preventing that from happening.   Should be "will"

Typo in the last word:  live should be life. ..  Or, better yet, the question should make clear the comparison between the first 10 years of Falcon and the first 10 years of NG.


Please take some time to compose a thoughtful, well worded question.

Sorry Freddo, I try my best, but English is not my native language...

[Tywin]

Well the race is ON...

[Tywin]

*snip*
The most New Glenn has going is their own satellite launches, and maybe, if NASA contracts some money, the private space station.
*snip*

New Glenn has 5 other customers with launch contracts: Eutelsat, muSpace, OneWeb (5 launches), SKY Perfect JSAT, and Telesat (multiple launches).

Exactly...

[FutureSpaceTourist]

I missed this poll originally - just voted 'Yes'.

It's going to be challenging but orbit on the first attempt is very encouraging and engines look great. Biggest factor, Blue Origin's culture has and is changing with the 'new' CEO. I'm recalibrating my perceptions of what Blue can do to not just extrapolate based on past performance. Of course that's new information, I probably would have voted 'No' when the poll started.

[dglow]

Even if NG outpaces F9 over an artificial window of ‘the first ten years’, it won’t ramp like Falcon has in the past five years.

[brahmanknight]

No.  It was never built to fly as much as Falcon 9. 

[DanClemmensen]

Based on the OP, we can reformulate this as "will New Glenn launch more than 86 times before January 2035?"

I think the answer is "no", because it will not compete well against F9 in the early years or against Starship later. It won't fly often until BO perfects booster reuse, and by then Starship will have perfected full and rapid reuse.

Their only hope is Kuiper, but Amazon's shareholders will not permit them to pay more per satellite if they can get a better deal from SpaceX.

[Yggdrasill]

I think they can. 8.6 launches per year isn't that much, and while Falcon 9 took 5 years to get to the first successful landing, New Glenn should perform the first landing in the first year. Falcon 9 was made on a shoestring budget, including all the production facilities. I think New Glenn will be able to comfortably surpass the Falcon 9 cadence for the first few years of life.

[AndrewM]

Blue wants to ramp to 24/yr as early as 2026 but they currently are licensed for up to 8/yr. I could see them reach 86 by Jan. 15, 2025 but I doubt they'll hit 24/yr. I could see an annualized cadence stabilize around 15-18. 

[spacenut]

I still say no, because it is a larger launcher.  It can carry more satellites than Falcon 9.  So, accordingly it will not need to launch as much.  It will be a little more expensive $/kg than Falcon 9 because it uses a hydrolox upper stage.  Hydrolox is more expensive than kerosene, and it is harder to handle.  Now, if they can recover the upper stage, that may change things.  Blue is awful slow. 

[Robotbeat]

I still say no, because it is a larger launcher.  It can carry more satellites than Falcon 9.  So, accordingly it will not need to launch as much.  It will be a little more expensive $/kg than Falcon 9 because it uses a hydrolox upper stage.  Hydrolox is more expensive than kerosene, and it is harder to handle.  Now, if they can recover the upper stage, that may change things.  Blue is awful slow.

Hydrogen isn’t THAT much more expensive than kerosene, and you need less of it.

New Glenn’s upper stage has 42t of propellant. Suppose BE-3U has a mixture ratio of 5, that means it needs 7t of hydrogen. Hydrogen is about $10/kg (can be cheaper industrially, but this is a nice round number), so it is about $70k.

Kerosene has a lower Isp, let’s say 3.5km/s vs 4.4km/s for hydrolox. And so let’s say you’ll need about 25% more propellant, or around 52.5t, and a mix ratio of like 2.34, so you need 16t. But it’s cheaper, maybe $1/kg. $16k.

So you save about $50k, but that’s insignificant. It’s all the handling costs and higher dry mass of the stages that matters, not prop costs for an upper stage.

[Robotbeat]

I also think no, unless F9 drops quickly. F9 grew at a rate of about 40-45% every year roughly this year, as spacex is focusing investment on Starship now. If New Glenn does that, it means doubling every 2 years. So after 10 years, that’s 32. The only way it’ll beat F9 is if F9 also reduces in launch rate by about 40% per year starting now, or if NG grows much faster than F9 did.

[DanClemmensen]

I also think no, unless F9 drops quickly. F9 grew at a rate of about 40-45% every year roughly this year, as spacex is focusing investment on Starship now. If New Glenn does that, it means doubling every 2 years. So after 10 years, that’s 32. The only way it’ll beat F9 is if F9 also reduces in launch rate by about 40% per year starting now, or if NG grows much faster than F9 did.

F9 launch rate will drop by about 66% between 2026 and 2027, assuming SpaceX can launch almost all Starlink on Starship in 2027.

[Robotbeat]

That assumes a pretty optimistic launch ramp rate for starship. Even assuming doubling of launch rate every year, that’s still just 32 launches in 2027, which I don’t think is enough. They can fit, I dunno, maybe 40-50 starlinks per starship launch, or only about twice as many (due to the larger V3 Starlink satellites). In 2024, they did 90 Starlink launches, plus another 5 dedicated Starshield launches, let’s call it 100 flat. So they’d need about 45-50 Starship Starlink launches, not counting Artemis or Mars related flights or anything else. So they would need to ramp more than twice as fast as Falcon 9 to launch often enough by 2027 to not need F9 any more for Starlink/starshield. I wouldn’t bet on it. 2028? Sure. Could happen by then.

[DanClemmensen]

That assumes a pretty optimistic launch ramp rate for starship. Even assuming doubling of launch rate every year, that’s still just 32 launches in 2027, which I don’t think is enough. They can fit, I dunno, maybe 40-50 starlinks per starship launch, or only about twice as many (due to the larger V3 Starlink satellites). In 2024, they did 90 Starlink launches, plus another 5 dedicated Starshield launches, let’s call it 100 flat. So they’d need about 45-50 Starship Starlink launches, not counting Artemis or Mars related flights or anything else. So they would need to ramp more than twice as fast as Falcon 9 to launch often enough by 2027 to not need F9 any more for Starlink/starshield. I wouldn’t bet on it. 2028? Sure. Could happen by then.

Yep. As you say, if they get Pez Starship fully functional in year N, then we expect the F9 rate to drop dramatically in year N+1. "Fully functional" is full and fast reusability. Remember that if they can actually achieve their goals, they can get to one launch per day using a total of one pad, one booster, and two Pez Ships.  That's one launch+Booster catch plus one Ship catch per day.

Just to remind us all, this is a peripheral topic. The base topic is still whether or not New Glenn will launch more than 86 times by January 2035. This peripheral topic is whether or not the New Glenn launch rate will ever exceed the F9 launch rate in some month in the future, and it depends on the ramp-down and EOL of F9 and the ramp-up, ramp-down, and EOL  of New Glenn.