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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Gilmour Space Technologies | Galactic Energy | Arianespace / ArianeGroup |
| Country | 🇦🇺 Australia | 🇨🇳 China | 🇪🇺 Europe |
| Status | In Development | Active | Retired |
| Vehicle class | Small | Small | Heavy |
| Propellant | Hybrid (Sirius motors, stages 1–2) / liquid (Phoenix engine, stage 3) | Solid (stages 1–3) + hydrazine liquid upper stage | LH₂ / LOX (Vulcain 2) + solid HTPB boosters |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| First flight | 2025 | 2020 | 1996 – 2023 |
| Payload to LEO | 300 kgas of [1] | 400 kgas of [1]300 kg to SSO. | 21,000 kgas of [1]Ariane 5 ECA configuration ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | 10,865 kgas of [1]ECA configuration. Ariane 5 ES (ATV) variant: 21,000 kg LEO ↑ Best |
| Height | 25 mas of [1] | 20 mas of [1] | 54 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | — | 33 tas of [1] | 777 tas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Success rate | 0/1as of [1]Maiden flight 2025-07-30 crashed 14 seconds after launch (insufficient thrust), from Bowen Orbital Spaceport, Queensland — Australia's first domestic orbital launch attempt. Preceded by two scrubs (2025-05-15 electrical issue, 2025-05-16 fairing anomaly). A second test flight was slated for early 2026. Block 2 (1,000 kg payload) and Eris Heavy (4,000 kg payload) variants are planned. | 91.3% (21/23)as of [1] | 97.5%as of [2]113/117 successes. Failures: V501 (Jun 1996, first flight), V63 (Dec 2002, off-course but payload recovered). 2 partial successes. ↑ Best |
| Total flights | 1as of [1] | 23as of [1] | 117as of [2]VA261 (Jul 5, 2023) was the final Ariane 5 flight. Launched the James Webb Space Telescope (Dec 2021). ↑ Best |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | ~$4.5M per launchas of [1]Total launch price, not a per-kg figure. ↓ Cheapest | — |
| Summary | Australia's first domestically developed orbital launch vehicle attempt, using a hybrid-propellant first and second stage; the maiden flight failed 14 seconds after liftoff in July 2025. | Galactic Energy's workhorse small-lift solid rocket — one of the most-flown Chinese commercial launchers — with a sea-launch variant (Ceres-1S, debuted Sep 2023) and a larger Ceres-2 in development. | Europe's dominant heavy-lift rocket for 27 years. Its most famous payload: the James Webb Space Telescope (Dec 25, 2021). Retired Jul 5, 2023 to make way for Ariane 6. Responsible for launching over 250 commercial and scientific payloads including XMM-Newton, Rosetta, and BepiColombo. |
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.