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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) 🇮🇳 India Trust: Operator-primaryⓘ Last verified Active · Last updated 2026-07-26Remove × | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) | Firefly Aerospace / Northrop Grumman | ISRO / Hindustan Aeronautics Limited |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇮🇳 India |
| Status | Active | In Development | Active |
| Vehicle class | Small | Medium | Small |
| Propellant | Solid (3 stages) + liquid upper stage | RP-1 / LOX | Solid (HTPB, stages 1–3) / MMH-MON3 liquid (velocity trimming module) |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| First flight | 2020 | 2027 | 2022 |
| Payload to LEO | 1,500 kgas of [1] | 16,000+ kgas of [1]5 m fairing. Renamed from 'Medium Launch Vehicle' (MLV) to 'Eclipse' in May 2025 alongside the Northrop Grumman partnership. First stage (7 Miranda engines) designed for reuse from roughly the 6th flight onward; second stage uses one Vira engine. First flight targeted 2027 — stated plan, not yet flown. ↑ Best | 500 kgas of [1]500 km altitude, 35–55° inclination. 300 kg to 500 km SSO. |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | — | — | 34 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | 78 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable. | — | 120 tas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Success rate | 80% (4/5)as of [1]Debut flight (2020-07-10) failed; returned to flight 2022-12-07 successfully. ↑ Best | — | 2/3 (67%)as of [1]First flight (Aug 2022) partial failure — satellites reached a lower-than-planned orbit. Second and third flights successful. |
| Total flights | 5as of [1] ↑ Best | — | 3as of [1] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | ₹30–35 crore per launch (~$3.1M–$3.6M)as of [1]Total launch price, not a per-kg figure. ↓ Cheapest |
| Summary | The larger sibling of Kuaizhou-1A, roughly 3.75x the payload class, road-mobile and solid-fueled, recovering commercial cadence after a 2020 debut failure. | A medium-lift successor to Firefly's Alpha, co-developed with Northrop Grumman, aimed at the national-security and commercial medium-lift gap between small launchers and heavy-lift vehicles. | ISRO's small-satellite launcher, designed for quick-turnaround dedicated smallsat missions. Full manufacturing, marketing and launch rights were transferred to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in June 2025 under a technology-transfer agreement. |
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.