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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Firefly Aerospace / Northrop Grumman | PLD Space | Isar Aerospace |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇪🇸 Spain | 🇩🇪 Germany |
| Status | In Development | In Development | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Small | Small |
| Propellant | RP-1 / LOX | RP-1 / LOX | LOX / kerosene (~80% manufactured in-house) |
| Reusable | Yes | Yes | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2027 | 2026 | 2025 |
| Payload to LEO | 16,000+ kgas of [1]5 m fairing. Renamed from 'Medium Launch Vehicle' (MLV) to 'Eclipse' in May 2025 alongside the Northrop Grumman partnership. First stage (7 Miranda engines) designed for reuse from roughly the 6th flight onward; second stage uses one Vira engine. First flight targeted 2027 — stated plan, not yet flown. ↑ Best | 1,080 kgas of [1]540 kg to SSO. First flight is a stated plan (targeted Q1 2026 as of this research; not yet confirmed flown) — treat as a target, not a fact. | 1,000 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | — | 35.7 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Liftoff mass | — | 69 tas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Success rate | — | — | 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. ↑ Best |
| Total flights | — | — | 1as of [1] ↑ Best |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| Summary | A medium-lift successor to Firefly's Alpha, co-developed with Northrop Grumman, aimed at the national-security and commercial medium-lift gap between small launchers and heavy-lift vehicles. | PLD Space's orbital small launcher with a recoverable first stage (engine thrust + parachutes), developed with ESA Future Launchers Preparatory Programme support; primary launch site is the Guiana Space Centre. | 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.