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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Galactic Energy | Avio | Khrunichev / Roscosmos |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇪🇺 Europe | 🇷🇺 Russia |
| Status | Active | In Development | Retired |
| Vehicle class | Small | Small | Heavy |
| Propellant | Solid (stages 1–3) + hydrazine liquid upper stage | Solid (P160C first stage) / LOX-methane (cryogenic upper stage) | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic — all stages) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| First flight | 2020 | 2027 | 2001 – 2023 |
| Payload to LEO | 400 kgas of [1]300 kg to SSO. | — | 22,400 kgas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | 6,290 kgas of [1]With Briz-M upper stage ↑ Best |
| Height | 20 mas of [1] | — | 58.2 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | 33 tas of [1] | — | 712 tas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Success rate | 91.3% (21/23)as of [1] ↑ Best | — | ~91%as of [2]~13 mission failures out of ~115 flights in Proton-M variant; highly toxic propellant complicated recovery operations |
| Total flights | 23as of [1] | — | ~115as of [2]Effectively retired ~2023 with Russian government replacing it with Angara A5 ↑ 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. | 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. | 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. |
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.