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 | Relativity Space | Isar Aerospace |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇩🇪 Germany |
| Status | Retired | In Development | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Heavy | Small |
| Propellant | LH2 / LOX | LOX / methane | LOX / kerosene (~80% manufactured in-house) |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2004 – 2024 | 2026 | 2025 |
| Payload to LEO | 28,370 kgas of [1] | 33,500 kg expendable / 23,500 kg with a reusable first stageas of [1]First flight targeted 2026 (stated plan, not yet confirmed flown as of this research). ↑ Best | 1,000 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 70.7 mas of [1] | 87 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Liftoff mass | 733 tas of [1] ↑ Best | — | — |
| Success rate | 93.75% (15/16 full success, 1 partial failure)as of [1] ↑ Best | — | 0/1 (first flight failed)as of [1]First flight from Andøya Spaceport (2025-03-30): liftoff succeeded but the rocket was terminated ~30 seconds in after a vent valve opened unexpectedly, causing loss of attitude control. Second flight ('Onward and Upward') repeatedly delayed through 2026 (weather, a safety-zone fishing vessel, a composite pressure vessel leak, then off-nominal fluid-system behavior as of 2026-06-15) — not yet flown as of this research. |
| Total flights | 16as of [1] ↑ Best | — | 1as of [1] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | ~$55M per launch (estimate)as of [1]Total launch price estimate, not a per-kg figure. ↓ 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| Summary | ULA's triple-common-booster-core heavy-lift launcher, retired 2024-04-09 after its final flight; superseded by Vulcan Centaur, which ULA states offers similar heavy-lift capability at lower cost. | Relativity Space's Falcon-9-class successor to Terran 1, partially 3D-printed, with 13 Aeon R methalox engines on a reusable first stage; second stage and fairing expendable. | Germany's first orbital-class launcher attempt; its first flight in March 2025 was Western Europe's first orbital launch attempt from the European mainland. A qualification second flight carrying CubeSats and ESA experiments has slipped repeatedly through 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.