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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | GSLV Mk III (LVM3) 🇮🇳 India Trust: Agency-primaryⓘ Last verified Active · Last updated 2026-06-01Remove × | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Arianespace / ArianeGroup | Khrunichev / Roscosmos | ISRO |
| Country | 🇪🇺 Europe | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇮🇳 India |
| Status | Retired | Retired | Active |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Heavy | Heavy |
| Propellant | LH₂ / LOX (Vulcain 2) + solid HTPB boosters | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic — all stages) | Solid (S200 boosters) + UDMH/N₂O₄ (L110) + LH₂/LOX (C25) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| First flight | 1996 – 2023 | 2001 – 2023 | 2017 |
| Payload to LEO | 21,000 kgas of [1]Ariane 5 ECA configuration | 22,400 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 10,000 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | 10,865 kgas of [1]ECA configuration. Ariane 5 ES (ATV) variant: 21,000 kg LEO ↑ Best | 6,290 kgas of [1]With Briz-M upper stage | 4,000 kgas of [1] |
| Height | 54 mas of [1] | 58.2 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 43.43 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 777 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 712 tas of [1] | 643 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. | ~91%as of [2]~13 mission failures out of ~115 flights in Proton-M variant; highly toxic propellant complicated recovery operations | 100%as of [2]10/10 missions since development flight 2014 (D1). Production flights since 2017. ↑ 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 | ~115as of [2]Effectively retired ~2023 with Russian government replacing it with Angara A5 | 10as of [2] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | ~$4,500/kgas of [1]Estimated from OneWeb commercial contract ~$450M for 36 satellites (~5 tonne batch to GTO) ↓ Cheapest |
| 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. | Russia's dominant heavy-lift rocket for GEO comsats and planetary missions from 1965 (Proton family) through 2023 (Proton-M). Notorious for its hypergolic propellant — a highly toxic UDMH/N₂O₄ combination that caused environmental concerns at Baikonur. Replaced by Angara A5. | India's most powerful rocket. Launched Chandrayaan-3 (Moon lander) in Jul 2023 and OneWeb internet satellites commercially. Renamed LVM3 (Launch Vehicle Mark 3) in 2022. The CE-20 cryogenic engine was entirely ISRO-developed — previously India depended on Russian technology for the GSLV Mk II. |
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.