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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Khrunichev / Roscosmos | Rocket Lab | LandSpace |
| Country | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Active | In Development | Active |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Medium | Medium |
| Propellant | RP-1 / LOX (RD-191, all 5 modules) | CH₄ / LOX | Methalox (LOX / liquid methane) |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2014 | 2026 | 2024 |
| Payload to LEO | 24,500 kgas of [1]With KVTK cryogenic upper stage (planned); Briz-M gives ~5,400 kg GTO ↑ Best | 13,000 kgas of [1]Reusable configuration with downrange barge landing — this is the single payload figure Rocket Lab publishes. ~15,000 kg expendable. | 6,000 kgas of [1]4,000 kg to 500 km SSO. Enhanced variant of the base Zhuque-2 with a common-bulkhead tank, TQ-15 thrust-vectoring engine on stage 2, and a niobium-alloy nozzle extension. A further-improved Block 2 first flew 2026-05-14 with subcooled propellant loading and a 3-ignition second stage. |
| 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] ↑ Best | 43 mas of [1] | — |
| Liftoff mass | 773 tas of [1] ↑ Best | ~481 tas of [1] | — |
| Success rate | 100%as of [2]4/4 mission successes: Dec 2014, Dec 2020, Mar 2023, Apr 2024 | — | 100% since 2024-11-27 debutas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Total flights | 4as of [2] | — | 2+ (2E variant)as of [1] ↑ Best |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| 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. | Rocket Lab's medium-lift reusable rocket targeting the $100B constellation replenishment market. Uses a 'hungry hippo' fairings design that opens at the top rather than traditional clamshell separation. First flight delayed to Q4 2026 after a Jan 2026 propellant tank test anomaly. | LandSpace's enhanced methalox launcher, the higher-performance successor to the original Zhuque-2 (the first methalox rocket ever to reach orbit, in 2023) — see slug 'zhuque-2' for the original vehicle already in our database. |
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.