It’s been a very exciting year for innovation. However, one story stood out big-time: Blue Origin’s successful launch and landing of their 7×2 New Glenn rocket. New Origin’s achievement heralds a critical milestone for space development: Super heavy lift competition.
New Glenn is radically different than its competitors: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and Starship. The most obvious difference is the number of engines. The 7×2 New Glenn has seven on its reusable first stage and two on its expendable second stage. The larger 9×4 New Glenn will have nine first stage engines and four second stage engines.
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy first stage consists of three Falcon 9 rockets clamped together, with nine engines on each rocket: A total of 27 first stage engines. Falcon Heavy’s second stage has one engine. SpaceX’s larger Starship has 33 engines on its reusable first stage, and nine on its second stage.
The 7×2 New Glenn (named after NASA astronaut John Glenn) has a projected LEO (low earth orbit) payload of 45 tonne, a little short of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy’s 50 tonne. The 7×2’s big brother, the 9×4 New Glenn, is expected to be capable of lifting more than 70 tonne to LEO. According to NASA, a “super heavy lift” vehicle is one that can lift at least 50 tonnes to LEO.
The world now has two private enterprises competing for heavy lift space business, using two very different vehicle architectures. This competition can be expected to power an evolutionary driving the long-term sustainability of commercial activity in space. The rocket supplier that delivers a clean safety record, with the best combination of pricing and timetable reliability, will capture the most business and deliver the best profitability.
The first 7×2 New Glenn successfully launched on January 16, 2025, and delivered its payload to medium earth orbit. However, the first stage booster’s engines failed to restart and the robotic booster was lost.
Ten months later, following an investigation and modifications to fix the engine problem, Blue Origin successfully launched their second 7×2 New Glenn on November 13, 2025. The rocket sent two NASA satellites (built by Rocketlab) on course for Mars, and then landed its first-stage booster on a purpose-built barge.
Blue Origin was not the only rocket builder making headlines in 2025. Honda R&D Co., Ltd. (a subsidiary of Honda Motor Co., Ltd.) launched and landed a 6.3 metre tall 1.3 tonne rocket of their own design. The rocket reached an altitude of 271.4 metres and landed within 370 mm of the target touchdown point, flying for 56.6 seconds. It was a nice demonstration of the state of their knowledge, showing stability during ascent and descent and proving they can not only land a rocket, but more importantly, land it where they want to land it: And in one piece.
Rocketlab’s medium lift Neutron is another new rocket with a reusable first stage. Rocketlab have not yet advertised a launch date for lift Neutron, however they have hinted that Neutron may fly as early as 2026.
I’ve worked in commercial R&D long enough to have learned about parallel discovery. Blue Origin, Honda, and SpaceX are telling the world about their successes. I’ll be very surprised if they’re the only companies trying to launch and land reusable rockets.
Techogeny congratulates Blue Origin and Honda on their successes. The 2025 launches represent important milestones in the commercialisation of space travel. I am especially excited to see the beginning of super heavy lift competition. I’m very much looking forward to further progress in the commercial space race.
We are technorg.
Featured Image: A New Glenn rocket launches from Space Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, Nov. 13, 2025. New Glenn can carry more than 13 metric tons to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) and 45 metric tons to low Earth orbit (LEO). (U.S. Space Force photo by Staff Sergeant Samuel Becker)