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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | United Launch Alliance | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) | Orienspace |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Retired | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Small | Medium |
| Propellant | LH2 / LOX | Solid (3 stages) + liquid upper stage | Solid (HTPB) — three core stages + four strap-on boosters |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| First flight | 2004 – 2024 | 2020 | 2024 |
| Payload to LEO | 28,370 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 1,500 kgas of [1] | 6,500 kgas of [1]~4,200 kg to 500 km SSO |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 70.7 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — | 30 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 733 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 78 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable. | ~400 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | 93.75% (15/16 full success, 1 partial failure)as of [1] | 80% (4/5)as of [1]Debut flight (2020-07-10) failed; returned to flight 2022-12-07 successfully. ↑ Best | 100%as of [2]2/2 successes: maiden flight Jan 11, 2024; second flight Oct 2025 delivered 3 commercial satellites to SSO |
| Total flights | 16as of [1] ↑ Best | 5as of [1] | 2as of [2]Both flights launched from a barge in the Yellow Sea off Haiyang, Shandong |
| 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| Summary | ULA's triple-common-booster-core heavy-lift launcher, retired 2024-04-09 after its final flight; superseded by Vulcan Centaur, which ULA states offers similar heavy-lift capability at lower cost. | The larger sibling of Kuaizhou-1A, roughly 3.75x the payload class, road-mobile and solid-fueled, recovering commercial cadence after a 2020 debut failure. | The world's most powerful solid-propellant launch vehicle and the largest rocket yet flown from a sea platform. Orienspace's barge-launched Gravity-1 gives Chinese commercial customers a mobile, weather-flexible ride for mid-inclination smallsat batches; both flights to date succeeded. |
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.