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 | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) | LandSpace | Interstellar Technologies |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| Status | Active | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Small | Medium | Small |
| Propellant | Solid (3 stages) + liquid-fueled 4th stage | CH₄ / LOX (9× TQ-12B first stage; TQ-15B vacuum upper stage) | Liquid biomethane (LBM) / LOX |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2017 | 2025 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 400 kgas of [1] | 21,000 kgas of [1]Expendable; ~18,300 kg with first-stage recovery ↑ Best | 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 | — | — | — |
| Height | 19.4 mas of [1] | 76.2 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Liftoff mass | 30 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable — road-mobile solid launcher. | ~660 tas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Success rate | ~85% (23 successes, 3 failures, 1 partial failure of 27)as of [1] ↑ Best | 100%as of [2]1/1 orbital successes (Y1, Dec 3, 2025). First-stage recovery failed — abnormal combustion during the landing burn crashed the booster near the landing zone. | — |
| Total flights | 27as of [1] ↑ Best | 1as of [3]Second orbital launch and recovery attempt targeted Q2 2026 per LandSpace | — |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| Summary | CASIC's road-mobile, quick-response small solid launcher, operated commercially by ExPace since 2017 — one of the higher-cadence Chinese small-lift vehicles. | LandSpace's stainless-steel, reusable methalox rocket — China's closest analogue to Falcon 9. The Y1 debut (Dec 3, 2025) reached orbit on the first attempt but lost the booster during its landing attempt; a second flight with another recovery attempt is targeted for Q2 2026. | 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.