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 | CASC / SAST | Firefly Aerospace |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | Retired | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Medium | Small |
| Propellant | LH2 / LOX | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) | RP-1 / LOX |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2004 – 2024 | 1992 | 2021 |
| Payload to LEO | 28,370 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg | 1,030 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~630 kg |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 70.7 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 41.06 mas of [1] | 29 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 733 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 232 tas of [1] | 54 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | 93.75% (15/16 full success, 1 partial failure)as of [1] | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) ↑ Best | 43%as of [2]3/7 full successes (FLTA003 Jul 2023, FLTA005 Dec 2024, FLTA007 Mar 2026) + 2 partial successes + 2 failures through FLTA007 |
| Total flights | 16as of [1] | ~78as of [2] ↑ Best | 7as of [2] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | ~$14,500/kgas of [1]Based on ~$15M list price / 1,030 kg LEO ↓ Cheapest |
| Summary | ULA's triple-common-booster-core heavy-lift launcher, retired 2024-04-09 after its final flight; superseded by Vulcan Centaur, which ULA states offers similar heavy-lift capability at lower cost. | 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. | Firefly Aerospace's two-stage small-lift rocket powered by four Reaver engines at sea level and one Lightning engine in vacuum. Also provides launch services for NASA's CLPS programme (Blue Ghost lander launched on Falcon 9). FLTA007 'Stairway to Seven' succeeded Mar 11, 2026. |
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.