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 | Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) / CASC | NASA / Boeing | Firefly Aerospace / Northrop Grumman |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | Active | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Super Heavy | Medium |
| Propellant | RP-1 / LOX | LH₂ / LOX (RS-25); solid HTPB (SRBs) | RP-1 / LOX |
| Reusable | No | No | Yes |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2024 | 2022 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 12,000 kgas of [1]At 200 km altitude; 10,000 kg at 300 km. | 95,000 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 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. |
| Payload to GTO | — | 27,000 kgas of [1]Trans-lunar injection (TLI) payload; GTO not a primary design goal ↑ Best | — |
| Height | 62 mas of [1] | 98.1 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Liftoff mass | 433 tas of [1] | 2,608 tas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Success rate | 100% (6/6)as of [1] ↑ Best | 100%as of [2]2/2: Artemis I uncrewed (Nov 16, 2022) + Artemis II crewed lunar flyby (Apr 1–10, 2026) | — |
| Total flights | 6as of [1]All six flights deployed Guowang (China SatNet) internet-constellation satellites, exclusively from Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site. ↑ Best | 2as of [2] | — |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | ~$40,000+/kgas of [3]NASA OIG (2023) estimated $4.1B per Artemis SLS/Orion flight; total program $23B+ development cost ↓ Cheapest | — |
| Summary | A medium-lift, kerosene/LOX launcher built specifically to deploy China's Guowang mega-constellation at high cadence from Wenchang's new commercial pads. | NASA's human deep space launch vehicle for the Artemis programme. Uses heritage RS-25 shuttle main engines (4 per flight, expended). Block 1B with Exploration Upper Stage cancelled Feb 2026; Block 1 will fly through Artemis IV at minimum. | 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. |
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.