It has been 13 years since a new medium-lift rocket debuted in the United States, and the last one, Antares, relied on refurbished Soviet engines and a Ukrainian-built core. Now a new generation is coming online, and the difference is stark: all four forthcoming vehicles have engines built in-house by their manufacturers, a lesson drawn from SpaceX's Falcon 9. The companies are aiming to control costs and timelines by vertically integrating production.
The timing matters because SpaceX is expected to stop selling Falcon 9 launches commercially as soon as 2028. Satellite operators face real uncertainty about which rockets will be available in the 2027–2030 timeframe, since the larger Vulcan and New Glenn rockets are expensive and heavily booked. That leaves room for new medium-lift vehicles to capture commercial business and support space startups.
Among the contenders, Stoke Space's Nova is the smallest, with 3 to 7 tons of capacity, and the most ambitious, targeting full reusability with a novel upper-stage design. Relativity Space's Terran R is larger, advertising up to 33.5 tons in expendable mode, and has gained momentum since Eric Schmidt acquired the company. Rocket Lab's Neutron, with 8.5 to 15 tons of capacity, has faced engine and composite-structure challenges. The source predicts Stoke could launch in July 2027 and Relativity in September 2027, but admits these estimates are "almost certainly wrong." The race is real, and the stakes are high, but no one knows for sure who will get there first.{