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| Attribute | ||
|---|---|---|
| Company | JAXA / IHI Aerospace | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) |
| Country | 🇯🇵 Japan | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Retired | Active |
| Vehicle class | Small | Small |
| Propellant | Solid (HTPB — all stages) | Solid (3 stages) + liquid upper stage |
| Reusable | No | No |
| Stages | 3 | 4 |
| First flight | 2013 – 2022 | 2020 |
| 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. | 1,500 kgas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | — | — |
| Height | 26 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Liftoff mass | 96 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 78 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable. |
| 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. | 80% (4/5)as of [1]Debut flight (2020-07-10) failed; returned to flight 2022-12-07 successfully. ↑ Best |
| Total flights | 6as of [2] ↑ Best | 5as of [1] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — |
| 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 larger sibling of Kuaizhou-1A, roughly 3.75x the payload class, road-mobile and solid-fueled, recovering commercial cadence after a 2020 debut failure. |
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.