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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Galactic Energy | CASC / SAST | Avio |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China | 🇪🇺 Europe |
| Status | Active | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Small | Medium | Small |
| Propellant | Solid (stages 1–3) + hydrazine liquid upper stage | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) | Solid (P160C first stage) / LOX-methane (cryogenic upper stage) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 4 | 2 | 3 |
| First flight | 2020 | 1992 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 400 kgas of [1]300 kg to SSO. | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg ↑ Best | — |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 20 mas of [1] | 41.06 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Liftoff mass | 33 tas of [1] | 232 tas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Success rate | 91.3% (21/23)as of [1] | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) ↑ Best | — |
| Total flights | 23as of [1] | ~78as of [2] ↑ Best | — |
| Cost / kg LEO | ~$4.5M per launchas of [1]Total launch price, not a per-kg figure. ↓ Cheapest | — | — |
| Summary | 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. | China's most-used sun-synchronous and polar orbit workhorse for small-to-medium military and commercial Earth observation satellites. Launched from Jiuquan and Taiyuan. Uses storable hypergolic propellants for high launch-readiness but produces toxic exhaust. | The next evolution of ESA's Vega line: replaces the Zefiro-9 and AVUM+ stages with a single cryogenic LOX/methane upper stage powered by the new M10 engine, adding multi-orbit deployment flexibility. First flight is a stated target (2027), not yet flown. |
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.