Starship vs Saturn V

Saturn V held the title of most powerful rocket ever flown for half a century. Starship took it in 2023 with roughly twice the liftoff thrust, but the two vehicles were built on opposite premises: Saturn V was expendable, flew 13 times, and never lost a crew or a payload, while Starship is designed for full reuse and is still in flight testing: it flew 13 suborbital tests before its 14th flight reached orbit on September 28, 2026, and on its 15th, in November 2026, the launch tower caught a returning ship for the first time.

Rockets30 min

Starship

Starship is SpaceX's super heavy-lift rocket in flight testing, designed for full reuse, orbital refueling, Starlink launches, and lunar missions.

Rockets19 min

Saturn V

Saturn V was the NASA rocket that launched the Apollo Moon missions and Skylab, flying 13 times from 1967 to 1973 without losing a crew or payload.

Key differences

Size and power: Starship V3 stands 124.4 m tall against Saturn V's 110.6 m, and its 33 Raptor engines produce about 16 million lbf at liftoff, roughly twice the 7.67 million lbf a Saturn V made on Apollo 17.
Reusability: every Saturn V was discarded after one flight. Starship is designed so both stages fly again, and SpaceX has caught three Super Heavy boosters with the launch tower and flown two boosters a second time. The first two V3 boosters reached the water but were destroyed in hard impacts after return-engine problems, while the third made a controlled splashdown on Flight 14 and the fourth, diverted offshore by an automated abort on Flight 15, exploded at splashdown. On November 14, 2026, at the end of Flight 15, the tower caught a ship returning from orbit, the first catch of an upper stage. No ship has yet been reflown.
Track record: Saturn V flew 13 times between November 1967 and May 1973 and carried six crews to the lunar surface. Starship has flown 15 test flights since April 2023. The first 13 followed suborbital profiles. Flight 14 reached orbit on September 28, 2026, deploying 26 Starlink satellites before controllers ended its planned six-orbit mission after about two orbits, and Flight 15, launched on November 13, deployed 26 more and completed about 14 orbits before returning to its launch site.
Proven versus planned payload: Saturn V put about 118,000 kg into Earth orbit and sent Apollo spacecraft of 45,700 to 48,600 kg toward the Moon. Starship's figure of more than 100 tonnes is a design target it has not yet demonstrated.

Side-by-side specifications

	Starship	Saturn V
Manufacturer	SpaceX	Boeing, North American, Douglas, IBM (for NASA)
Country	United States	United States
First integrated flight	April 20, 2023	-
Current version	Version 3 (V3)	-
Height	124.4 m (V3); about 121 m (V1); 123 m (V2)	110.6 m (363 ft)
Diameter	9 m	10.1 m
Stages	2 (Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage)	3
Engines	33 booster and 6 ship Raptor engines (V3)	-
Propellants	Liquid oxygen and liquid methane	-
Payload to LEO	100+ metric tonnes (V3 design target, not demonstrated)	About 118,000 kg
Operational launch site	Starbase, Texas	-
Status	Flight testing; 15 integrated tests, first orbital flight on September 28, 2026, first ship catch on November 14, 2026	Retired (1973)
First flight	-	November 9, 1967 (Apollo 4)
Last flight	-	May 14, 1973 (Skylab 1)
Mass	-	2,822,000 to 2,965,000 kg at ignition
Payload to the Moon	-	45,700 to 48,600 kg
Total launches	-	13 (no failures)

Figures come from each article's infobox; see the articles for sources and context.

Sources

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