Pick up to 4 launch vehicles to compare side-by-side. State lives in the URL — share the link and the comparison loads exactly as you left it.
The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Khrunichev / Roscosmos | Galactic Energy | Relativity Space |
| Country | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | Active | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Small | Heavy |
| Propellant | RP-1 / LOX (RD-191, all 5 modules) | Solid (stages 1–3) + hydrazine liquid upper stage | LOX / methane |
| Reusable | No | No | Yes |
| Stages | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| First flight | 2014 | 2020 | 2026 |
| Payload to LEO | 24,500 kgas of [1]With KVTK cryogenic upper stage (planned); Briz-M gives ~5,400 kg GTO | 400 kgas of [1]300 kg to SSO. | 33,500 kg expendable / 23,500 kg with a reusable first stageas of [1]First flight targeted 2026 (stated plan, not yet confirmed flown as of this research). ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | 5,400 kgas of [1]Briz-M upper stage. KVTK would raise this to ~7,500 kg. ↑ Best | — | — |
| Height | 64 mas of [1] | 20 mas of [1] | 87 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | 773 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 33 tas of [1] | — |
| Success rate | 100%as of [2]4/4 mission successes: Dec 2014, Dec 2020, Mar 2023, Apr 2024 ↑ Best | 91.3% (21/23)as of [1] | — |
| Total flights | 4as of [2] | 23as of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | ~$4.5M per launchas of [1]Total launch price, not a per-kg figure. ↓ Cheapest | ~$55M per launch (estimate)as of [1]Total launch price estimate, not a per-kg figure. |
| Summary | Russia's new-generation heavy-lift rocket built entirely of Russian-manufactured components — a political priority after Proton-M's dependence on Ukrainian components. Five URM-1 universal rocket modules share the same propellant (RP-1/LOX), unlike Proton-M's toxic hypergolics. Flight rate remains very low. | Galactic Energy's workhorse small-lift solid rocket — one of the most-flown Chinese commercial launchers — with a sea-launch variant (Ceres-1S, debuted Sep 2023) and a larger Ceres-2 in development. | Relativity Space's Falcon-9-class successor to Terran 1, partially 3D-printed, with 13 Aeon R methalox engines on a reusable first stage; second stage and fairing expendable. |
48 launch vehicles across 10 countries — active, retired, and in development — with primary-source citations from manufacturer user guides and agency press kits. Pure URL state: bookmark or share the link and the comparison reproduces exactly.