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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | JAXA / Mitsubishi Heavy Industries | LandSpace | Interstellar Technologies |
| Country | 🇯🇵 Japan | 🇨🇳 China | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| Status | Active | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Medium | Small |
| Propellant | LH₂ / LOX (LE-9 first stage + LE-5B-3 second stage) | Methalox (LOX / liquid methane) | Liquid biomethane (LBM) / LOX |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2023 | 2024 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 16,500 kgas of [1]H3-24 (2 SRB-3 + 4 LE-9 engines) configuration. H3-30 baseline: 16,500 kg. ↑ Best | 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. | 250 kgas of [1]500 km SSO. No flight attempts as of this research — follows the company's successful suborbital MOMO sounding-rocket program. A larger orbital vehicle, DECA, was announced January 2023. |
| Payload to GTO | 6,500 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | — | — |
| Height | 57 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — | — |
| Liftoff mass | 574 tas of [1]H3-24S configuration ↑ Best | — | — |
| Success rate | 78%as of [2]~7/9 successes. TF1 (Mar 7, 2023) first flight failure (2nd-stage ignition, DAICHI-3 lost). F8 (Dec 23, 2025) QZS-5 lost to 2nd-stage relight anomaly. H3-30 maiden flight (Jun 12, 2026) successful. | 100% since 2024-11-27 debutas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Total flights | 9as of [3]Includes the H3-30 (three LE-9 engines, no SRBs) maiden flight on Jun 12, 2026 | 2+ (2E variant)as of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Cost / kg LEO | ~$5,500/kgas of [1]Target unit price ¥5B (~$35M at ¥145/$); roughly half H-IIA's per-launch cost ↓ Cheapest | — | — |
| Summary | Japan's next-generation flagship rocket designed to halve H-IIA costs. Uses LE-9 engines burning liquid hydrogen — the highest-performing expander-cycle engines in the world. First flight TF1 (Mar 7, 2023) failed; first success was TF2 (Feb 17, 2024). HTV-X1 cargo mission to ISS (Oct 2025) demonstrated operational readiness, and the solid-booster-free H3-30 variant debuted Jun 12, 2026. | 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. | A liquid-biomethane orbital smallsat launcher from Interstellar Technologies, Japan's most established private rocket startup by suborbital flight heritage, though not yet flown to orbit. |
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.