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 | Orienspace | Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) / CASC | CASC / SAST |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Active | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Propellant | Solid (HTPB) — three core stages + four strap-on boosters | RP-1 / LOX | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2024 | 2024 | 1992 |
| Payload to LEO | 6,500 kgas of [1]~4,200 kg to 500 km SSO | 12,000 kgas of [1]At 200 km altitude; 10,000 kg at 300 km. ↑ Best | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 30 mas of [1] | 62 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 41.06 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | ~400 tas of [1] | 433 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 232 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | 100%as of [2]2/2 successes: maiden flight Jan 11, 2024; second flight Oct 2025 delivered 3 commercial satellites to SSO | 100% (6/6)as of [1] ↑ Best | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) |
| Total flights | 2as of [2]Both flights launched from a barge in the Yellow Sea off Haiyang, Shandong | 6as of [1]All six flights deployed Guowang (China SatNet) internet-constellation satellites, exclusively from Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site. | ~78as of [2] ↑ Best |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| Summary | The world's most powerful solid-propellant launch vehicle and the largest rocket yet flown from a sea platform. Orienspace's barge-launched Gravity-1 gives Chinese commercial customers a mobile, weather-flexible ride for mid-inclination smallsat batches; both flights to date succeeded. | A medium-lift, kerosene/LOX launcher built specifically to deploy China's Guowang mega-constellation at high cadence from Wenchang's new commercial pads. | 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. |
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.