These are ranked by liftoff mass — the total weight of propellant, structure and payload at ignition — not by payload capacity or thrust. Two of the five never completed a successful mission, and one is still a development vehicle.
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Starship and Super Heavy — about 5,000 t. The first rocket to weigh more than 5,000 tonnes at liftoff, roughly 1.7 times Saturn V. Its first integrated flight was in April 2023; by 2026 the programme has flown repeated test flights and caught the booster with the launch tower, but the vehicle is still in development rather than routine service.
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Saturn V — about 2,970 t. Thirteen launches between 1967 and 1973, twelve of them with crews, carrying 24 astronauts to the Moon. It remains the heaviest rocket ever to fly a complete mission, and the only one to have sent people beyond low Earth orbit.
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N1 — about 2,750 t. The Soviet Moon rocket, with 30 engines in its first stage. It flew four times between 1969 and 1972 and failed four times; the second launch destroyed its launch pad, and the programme was cancelled in 1974 without a single success.
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SLS Block 1 — about 2,600 t. Flew once, in November 2022, sending an uncrewed Orion around the Moon on Artemis I. It produces more thrust at liftoff than Saturn V, making it the most powerful rocket ever to complete a mission, even though it is lighter than the rocket it resembles.
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Energia — about 2,400 t. The Soviet super-heavy launcher flew twice, in 1987 and 1988. Its second flight carried Buran, the Soviet shuttle, which landed automatically — the first and only fully automatic landing of a winged orbital vehicle. The programme ended with the Soviet Union, and the surviving hardware was left in a hangar that later collapsed.
Liftoff mass is a rough proxy for ambition rather than capability. Falcon Heavy weighs about 1,400 t — less than half of Saturn V — and has flown more often than N1 and Energia combined, which is the more useful measure of a rocket that works.