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 | SpaceX | Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) / CASC | LandSpace |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Active | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Propellant | RP-1 / LOX | RP-1 / LOX | Methalox (LOX / liquid methane) |
| Reusable | Yes | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2010 | 2024 | 2024 |
| Payload to LEO | 22,800 kgas of [1]Reusable first stage (expended gives 22,800 kg; reused gives ~15,600 kg) ↑ Best | 12,000 kgas of [1]At 200 km altitude; 10,000 kg at 300 km. | 6,000 kgas of [1]4,000 kg to 500 km SSO. Enhanced variant of the base Zhuque-2 with a common-bulkhead tank, TQ-15 thrust-vectoring engine on stage 2, and a niobium-alloy nozzle extension. A further-improved Block 2 first flew 2026-05-14 with subcooled propellant loading and a 3-ignition second stage. |
| Payload to GTO | 8,300 kgas of [1]Expendable configuration. Reusable GTO capacity ~5,500 kg. ↑ Best | — | — |
| Height | 70 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 62 mas of [1] | — |
| Liftoff mass | 549 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 433 tas of [1] | — |
| Success rate | 99.5%as of [2]~665/668 full successes (Falcon family incl. Falcon Heavy); 500th landing Sep 2025 | 100% (6/6)as of [1] | 100% since 2024-11-27 debutas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Total flights | ~668as of [2]Falcon family total (Falcon 9 + Falcon Heavy) per launch log; 75 in 2026 (74 F9 + 1 FH) as of Jun 25, 2026 ↑ Best | 6as of [1]All six flights deployed Guowang (China SatNet) internet-constellation satellites, exclusively from Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site. | 2+ (2E variant)as of [1] |
| Cost / kg LEO | ~$2,720/kgas of [1]Based on $67M list price / 22,800 kg LEO (expendable) ↓ Cheapest | — | — |
| Summary | 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. | A medium-lift, kerosene/LOX launcher built specifically to deploy China's Guowang mega-constellation at high cadence from Wenchang's new commercial pads. | LandSpace's enhanced methalox launcher, the higher-performance successor to the original Zhuque-2 (the first methalox rocket ever to reach orbit, in 2023) — see slug 'zhuque-2' for the original vehicle already in our database. |
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.