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 | Arianespace / ArianeGroup | Rocket Lab | CASC / CALT |
| Country | 🇪🇺 Europe | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Retired | In Development | Active |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Medium | Medium |
| Propellant | LH₂ / LOX (Vulcain 2) + solid HTPB boosters | CH₄ / LOX | RP-1 / LOX (YF-100 + YF-115) |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 1996 – 2023 | 2026 | 2016 |
| Payload to LEO | 21,000 kgas of [1]Ariane 5 ECA configuration ↑ Best | 13,000 kgas of [1]Expendable; ~8,000 kg reusable with first-stage return | 13,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~5,500 kg |
| Payload to GTO | 10,865 kgas of [1]ECA configuration. Ariane 5 ES (ATV) variant: 21,000 kg LEO ↑ Best | — | — |
| Height | 54 mas of [1] ↑ Best | ~40 mas of [1] | 53.1 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 777 tas of [1] ↑ Best | ~481 tas of [1] | 597 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | 97.5%as of [2]113/117 successes. Failures: V501 (Jun 1996, first flight), V63 (Dec 2002, off-course but payload recovered). 2 partial successes. | — | 100%as of [2]12/12 missions, all Tianzhou ISS resupply or CZ-7 tech demo flights ↑ Best |
| Total flights | 117as of [2]VA261 (Jul 5, 2023) was the final Ariane 5 flight. Launched the James Webb Space Telescope (Dec 2021). ↑ Best | — | 12as of [2]Most recently Tianzhou-10 cargo to Tiangong (May 11, 2026) |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| Summary | Europe's dominant heavy-lift rocket for 27 years. Its most famous payload: the James Webb Space Telescope (Dec 25, 2021). Retired Jul 5, 2023 to make way for Ariane 6. Responsible for launching over 250 commercial and scientific payloads including XMM-Newton, Rosetta, and BepiColombo. | 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. | China's workhorse medium-lift rocket, used exclusively for Tianzhou automated cargo missions to the Tiangong space station. Designed to replace the Long March 2F for high-cadence LEO/cargo missions. Uses the same YF-100 engines as Long March 5's boosters. |
28 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.