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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | United Launch Alliance | Firefly Aerospace / Northrop Grumman | CASC / CALT |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Retired | In Development | Active |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Medium | Medium |
| Propellant | LH2 / LOX | RP-1 / LOX | RP-1 / LOX (YF-100 + YF-115) |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2004 – 2024 | 2027 | 2016 |
| Payload to LEO | 28,370 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 16,000+ kgas of [1]5 m fairing. Renamed from 'Medium Launch Vehicle' (MLV) to 'Eclipse' in May 2025 alongside the Northrop Grumman partnership. First stage (7 Miranda engines) designed for reuse from roughly the 6th flight onward; second stage uses one Vira engine. First flight targeted 2027 — stated plan, not yet flown. | 13,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~5,500 kg |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 70.7 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — | 53.1 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 733 tas of [1] ↑ Best | — | 597 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | 93.75% (15/16 full success, 1 partial failure)as of [1] | — | 100%as of [2]12/12 missions, all Tianzhou ISS resupply or CZ-7 tech demo flights ↑ Best |
| Total flights | 16as of [1] ↑ Best | — | 12as of [2]Most recently Tianzhou-10 cargo to Tiangong (May 11, 2026) |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| Summary | ULA's triple-common-booster-core heavy-lift launcher, retired 2024-04-09 after its final flight; superseded by Vulcan Centaur, which ULA states offers similar heavy-lift capability at lower cost. | A medium-lift successor to Firefly's Alpha, co-developed with Northrop Grumman, aimed at the national-security and commercial medium-lift gap between small launchers and heavy-lift vehicles. | 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. |
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.