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 | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Retired | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Medium | Small |
| Propellant | LH2 / LOX | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) | Solid (3 stages) + liquid-fueled 4th stage |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| First flight | 2004 – 2024 | 1992 | 2017 |
| Payload to LEO | 28,370 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg | 400 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 70.7 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 41.06 mas of [1] | 19.4 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 733 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 232 tas of [1] | 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] | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) | ~85% (23 successes, 3 failures, 1 partial failure of 27)as of [1] ↑ Best |
| Total flights | 16as of [1] | ~78as of [2] ↑ Best | 27as of [1] |
| 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| Summary | ULA's triple-common-booster-core heavy-lift launcher, retired 2024-04-09 after its final flight; superseded by Vulcan Centaur, which ULA states offers similar heavy-lift capability at lower cost. | 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. | CASIC's road-mobile, quick-response small solid launcher, operated commercially by ExPace since 2017 — one of the higher-cadence Chinese small-lift vehicles. |
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.