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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | Electron 🇳🇿 New Zealand / USA Trust: Agency-primaryⓘ Last verified Active · Last updated 2026-06-28Remove × | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Arianespace / ArianeGroup | Isar Aerospace | Rocket Lab |
| Country | 🇪🇺 Europe | 🇩🇪 Germany | 🇳🇿 New Zealand / USA |
| Status | Retired | In Development | Active |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Small | Small |
| Propellant | LH₂ / LOX (Vulcain 2) + solid HTPB boosters | LOX / kerosene (~80% manufactured in-house) | RP-1 / LOX |
| Reusable | No | No | Yes |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 1996 – 2023 | 2025 | 2017 |
| Payload to LEO | 21,000 kgas of [1]Ariane 5 ECA configuration ↑ Best | 1,000 kgas of [1] | 300 kgas of [1]~200 kg reusable mode (lower due to propellant reserved for re-entry burn) |
| 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 | — | 18 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 777 tas of [1] ↑ Best | — | 13 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. ↑ Best | 0/1 (first flight failed)as of [1]First flight from Andøya Spaceport (2025-03-30): liftoff succeeded but the rocket was terminated ~30 seconds in after a vent valve opened unexpectedly, causing loss of attitude control. Second flight ('Onward and Upward') repeatedly delayed through 2026 (weather, a safety-zone fishing vessel, a composite pressure vessel leak, then off-nominal fluid-system behavior as of 2026-06-15) — not yet flown as of this research. | 95.6%as of [3]87 successes / 91 Electron-family flights. Orbital Electron alone: 78/82 (95.1%). HASTE: 9/9. On a 50-flight success streak since December 2023; 21/21 in the 2025 calendar year. |
| Total flights | 117as of [2]VA261 (Jul 5, 2023) was the final Ariane 5 flight. Launched the James Webb Space Telescope (Dec 2021). ↑ Best | 1as of [1] | 91as of [3]91 Electron-family flights: 82 orbital plus 9 suborbital HASTE. Reconciled against three 10-K cumulative checkpoints (38/54/75 successes through 2023/2024/2025). Rocket Lab counts HASTE inside its own 'Electron launched N times' figure. |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | ~$25,000/kgas of [1]Based on ~$7.5M list price / 300 kg payload ↓ 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. | Germany's first orbital-class launcher attempt; its first flight in March 2025 was Western Europe's first orbital launch attempt from the European mainland. A qualification second flight carrying CubeSats and ESA experiments has slipped repeatedly through 2026. | The world's most commercially active small launch vehicle, designed and built in-house at Rocket Lab. Rutherford engines are the first flight-proven engines made with additive manufacturing (metal 3D printing). Booster recovery via parachute and helicopter catch (later transitioned to ocean recovery). |
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.