Europe Designing a Rocket That Could Outperform SpaceX’s Starship Reusability Efficiency

German Aerospace Center (DLR) researchers have proposed the RLV C5, a European alternative designed with efficiency in mind. Instead of matching Starship’s raw size, the RLV C5 combines a winged reusable booster, inspired by the SpaceLiner project, with an expendable upper stage powered by liquid hydrogen and oxygen. This choice of propellant provides higher efficiency than Starship’s methane-oxygen engines.

Unlike Starship’s vertical landing method, the booster glides back through the atmosphere and is captured mid-air by a subsonic aircraft. This eliminates the need to reserve fuel for landing burns, allowing more of the rocket’s mass to contribute to reaching orbit. Early models suggest 74% of its launch mass becomes payload, compared to Starship’s 40%, demonstrating that strategic design can sometimes outweigh sheer size.

This is an interesting idea. A first stage booster that returns to earth by gliding down and thus not needing the extra landing fuel. Catching it with a plane sounds tricky and dangerous though. Maybe try and design it, if possible, so it makes the landing on it’s own like a glider? Or better yet an auto-pilot plane?