Europe’s proposed RLV C5 super-heavy launch vehicle concept offers a partial-reusability design that prioritizes high payload mass efficiency over SpaceX’s full reusability model, according to a recent independent evaluation by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Published following a detailed telemetry analysis of SpaceX’s early Starship flight tests, the DLR study outlines an alternative aerospace approach that utilizes a winged booster captured mid-air by a subsonic aircraft.
Evaluating SpaceX’s Starship Performance Through Telemetry Data
According to the German Aerospace Center (DLR), researchers reconstructed SpaceX’s rocket performance by extracting telemetry from publicly available video of the first four integrated flight tests, analyzing the data second by second to build independent performance models. That research validated that the current fully reusable version of Starship can deliver approximately 59 tonnes to low Earth orbit. Furthermore, the DLR models project that SpaceX’s planned next-generation Starship—featuring larger propellant tanks and Raptor 3 engines—will achieve a reusable payload capacity of about 115 tonnes, rising to 188 tonnes in an expendable configuration.
Structural Efficiency and Design Trade-Offs of the RLV C5
Unlike SpaceX’s Starship, which relies on heavy heat shield tiles, structural reinforcements, and landing propellant for complete vertical recovery, the European RLV C5 concept takes a different structural route. According to the DLR study, the RLV C5 combines a reusable winged booster from the long-running SpaceLiner program with an expendable upper stage. The vehicle runs on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, which is a more efficient propellant combination than the methane and oxygen used by SpaceX’s Raptor engines. Because the RLV C5 booster glides back into the atmosphere and avoids carrying extra fuel for a powered vertical landing, it devotes about 74 percent of its mass to payload, compared to Starship’s approximately 40 percent.
Propulsion and Recovery Systems Compared
The operational strategies of the two launch systems diverge significantly upon booster return. SpaceX utilizes giant mechanical launch tower arms to catch returning Super Heavy boosters. By contrast, the RLV C5 booster would be captured in mid-air by a large subsonic aircraft after gliding through the atmosphere. While Starship targets full reusability to minimize hardware waste over thousands of flights, the DLR researchers emphasize that the RLV C5 maximizes immediate structural efficiency through partial reuse. Both systems represent fundamentally different engineering philosophies for super-heavy orbital lift capacity.
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