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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | Electron 🇳🇿 New Zealand / USA Trust: Agency-primaryⓘ Last verified Active · Last updated 2026-06-28Remove × | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) | Rocket Lab | Avio |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇳🇿 New Zealand / USA | 🇪🇺 Europe |
| Status | Active | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Small | Small | Small |
| Propellant | Solid (3 stages) + liquid upper stage | RP-1 / LOX | Solid (P160C first stage) / LOX-methane (cryogenic upper stage) |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 4 | 2 | 3 |
| First flight | 2020 | 2017 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 1,500 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 300 kgas of [1]~200 kg reusable mode (lower due to propellant reserved for re-entry burn) | — |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | — | 18 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Liftoff mass | 78 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable. ↑ Best | 13 tas of [1] | — |
| Success rate | 80% (4/5)as of [1]Debut flight (2020-07-10) failed; returned to flight 2022-12-07 successfully. ↑ Best | 95.6%as of [3]87 successes / 91 Electron-family flights. Orbital Electron alone: 78/82 (95.1%). HASTE: 9/9. On a 50-flight success streak since December 2023; 21/21 in the 2025 calendar year. | — |
| Total flights | 5as of [1] | 91as of [3]91 Electron-family flights: 82 orbital plus 9 suborbital HASTE. Reconciled against three 10-K cumulative checkpoints (38/54/75 successes through 2023/2024/2025). Rocket Lab counts HASTE inside its own 'Electron launched N times' figure. ↑ Best | — |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | ~$25,000/kgas of [1]Based on ~$7.5M list price / 300 kg payload ↓ 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. | The world's most commercially active small launch vehicle, designed and built in-house at Rocket Lab. Rutherford engines are the first flight-proven engines made with additive manufacturing (metal 3D printing). Booster recovery via parachute and helicopter catch (later transitioned to ocean recovery). | The next evolution of ESA's Vega line: replaces the Zefiro-9 and AVUM+ stages with a single cryogenic LOX/methane upper stage powered by the new M10 engine, adding multi-orbit deployment flexibility. First flight is a stated target (2027), not yet flown. |
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.