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 | JAXA / IHI Aerospace | SpaceX | CASC / SAST |
| Country | 🇯🇵 Japan | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Retired | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Small | Medium | Medium |
| Propellant | Solid (HTPB — all stages) | RP-1 / LOX | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2013 – 2022 | 2010 | 1992 |
| Payload to LEO | 590 kgas of [1]500 kg to SSO. Enhanced Epsilon (from E-4) added 700 kg LEO via PBS liquid kick stage. | 22,800 kgas of [1]Reusable first stage (expended gives 22,800 kg; reused gives ~15,600 kg) ↑ Best | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg |
| Payload to GTO | — | 8,300 kgas of [1]Expendable configuration. Reusable GTO capacity ~5,500 kg. ↑ Best | — |
| Height | 26 mas of [1] | 70 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 41.06 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 96 tas of [1] | 549 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 232 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | 83.3%as of [2]5/6 successes. E-6 (Oct 12, 2022) PBS upper stage failed to ignite, eight satellites lost. Epsilon S (next-generation) ground test anomaly Jan 2023 effectively ended the programme. | 99.5%as of [2]634/637 full successes; Block 5 alone 580/581 = 99.8% ↑ Best | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) |
| Total flights | 6as of [2] | 637as of [2] ↑ Best | ~78as of [2] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | ~$2,720/kgas of [1]Based on $67M list price / 22,800 kg LEO (expendable) ↓ Cheapest | — |
| Summary | JAXA's small solid-fuel rocket derived from the M-V rocket heritage. Designed for highly autonomous operations — launch preparations could be managed by just 8 people. The sixth and final E-6 mission (Oct 2022) failed when the PBS kick stage didn't ignite; a ground explosion during Epsilon S testing (Jan 2023) ended the programme. | The world's most frequently flown orbital rocket. Block 5 first stages have landed over 280 times and reflown up to 23 times. Backbone of Starlink and commercial crewed launches. | 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. |
28 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.