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 | Rocket Lab | Avio |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇪🇺 Europe |
| Status | Retired | In Development | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Medium | Small |
| Propellant | LH2 / LOX | CH₄ / LOX | Solid (P160C first stage) / LOX-methane (cryogenic upper stage) |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| First flight | 2004 – 2024 | 2026 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 28,370 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 13,000 kgas of [1]Reusable configuration with downrange barge landing — this is the single payload figure Rocket Lab publishes. ~15,000 kg expendable. | — |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 70.7 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 43 mas of [1] | — |
| Liftoff mass | 733 tas of [1] ↑ Best | ~481 tas of [1] | — |
| Success rate | 93.75% (15/16 full success, 1 partial failure)as of [1] ↑ Best | — | — |
| Total flights | 16as 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| Summary | ULA's triple-common-booster-core heavy-lift launcher, retired 2024-04-09 after its final flight; superseded by Vulcan Centaur, which ULA states offers similar heavy-lift capability at lower cost. | Rocket Lab's medium-lift reusable rocket targeting the $100B constellation replenishment market. Uses a 'hungry hippo' fairings design that opens at the top rather than traditional clamshell separation. First flight delayed to Q4 2026 after a Jan 2026 propellant tank test anomaly. | The next evolution of ESA's Vega line: replaces the Zefiro-9 and AVUM+ stages with a single cryogenic LOX/methane upper stage powered by the new M10 engine, adding multi-orbit deployment flexibility. First flight is a stated target (2027), not yet flown. |
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.