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 / Mitsubishi Heavy Industries | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) | Isar Aerospace |
| Country | 🇯🇵 Japan | 🇨🇳 China | 🇩🇪 Germany |
| Status | Retired | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Small | Small |
| Propellant | LH₂ / LOX (LE-7A first stage + LE-5B second stage) | Solid (3 stages) + liquid-fueled 4th stage | LOX / kerosene (~80% manufactured in-house) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| First flight | 2001 – 2025 | 2017 | 2025 |
| Payload to LEO | 10,000 kgas of [1]202 configuration (2 SRB-A3 solid strap-ons) ↑ Best | 400 kgas of [1] | 1,000 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | 4,100 kgas of [1]202 configuration ↑ Best | — | — |
| Height | 53 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 19.4 mas of [1] | — |
| Liftoff mass | 285 tas of [1]202 configuration ↑ Best | 30 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable — road-mobile solid launcher. | — |
| Success rate | 98%as of [2]49/50 successes. Only failure: F6 (Nov 2003, MTSAT-1R lost due to SRB separation anomaly). Retired after Flight 50 (GOSAT-GW, Jun 28, 2025). | ~85% (23 successes, 3 failures, 1 partial failure of 27)as of [1] ↑ Best | 0/1 (first flight failed)as of [1]First flight from Andøya Spaceport (2025-03-30): liftoff succeeded but the rocket was terminated ~30 seconds in after a vent valve opened unexpectedly, causing loss of attitude control. Second flight ('Onward and Upward') repeatedly delayed through 2026 (weather, a safety-zone fishing vessel, a composite pressure vessel leak, then off-nominal fluid-system behavior as of 2026-06-15) — not yet flown as of this research. |
| Total flights | 50as of [2]50 flights from 2001–2025. H3 replaces it from 2024 onward. ↑ Best | 27as of [1] | 1as of [1] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| Summary | Japan's flagship medium-lift rocket for 24 years, retiring after an exceptional 49/50 mission success record. Launched the SELENE lunar orbiter (2007), Akatsuki Venus probe (2010), Hayabusa2 (2014), SLIM lunar lander (2023), and the ALOS series Earth observation satellites. | CASIC's road-mobile, quick-response small solid launcher, operated commercially by ExPace since 2017 — one of the higher-cadence Chinese small-lift vehicles. | Germany's first orbital-class launcher attempt; its first flight in March 2025 was Western Europe's first orbital launch attempt from the European mainland. A qualification second flight carrying CubeSats and ESA experiments has slipped repeatedly through 2026. |
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.