Pick up to 4 launch vehicles to compare side-by-side. State lives in the URL — share the link and the comparison loads exactly as you left it.
The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | United Launch Alliance | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) | Interstellar Technologies |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| Status | Retired | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Small | Small |
| Propellant | LH2 / LOX | Solid (3 stages) + liquid-fueled 4th stage | Liquid biomethane (LBM) / LOX |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| First flight | 2004 – 2024 | 2017 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 28,370 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 400 kgas of [1] | 250 kgas of [1]500 km SSO. No flight attempts as of this research — follows the company's successful suborbital MOMO sounding-rocket program. A larger orbital vehicle, DECA, was announced January 2023. |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 70.7 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 19.4 mas of [1] | — |
| Liftoff mass | 733 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 30 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable — road-mobile solid launcher. | — |
| Success rate | 93.75% (15/16 full success, 1 partial failure)as of [1] | ~85% (23 successes, 3 failures, 1 partial failure of 27)as of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Total flights | 16as of [1] | 27as of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| 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| Summary | ULA's triple-common-booster-core heavy-lift launcher, retired 2024-04-09 after its final flight; superseded by Vulcan Centaur, which ULA states offers similar heavy-lift capability at lower cost. | CASIC's road-mobile, quick-response small solid launcher, operated commercially by ExPace since 2017 — one of the higher-cadence Chinese small-lift vehicles. | A liquid-biomethane orbital smallsat launcher from Interstellar Technologies, Japan's most established private rocket startup by suborbital flight heritage, though not yet flown to orbit. |
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.