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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) / CASC | LandSpace | Isar Aerospace |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China | 🇩🇪 Germany |
| Status | Active | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Medium | Small |
| Propellant | RP-1 / LOX | Methalox (LOX / liquid methane) | LOX / kerosene (~80% manufactured in-house) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2024 | 2024 | 2025 |
| Payload to LEO | 12,000 kgas of [1]At 200 km altitude; 10,000 kg at 300 km. ↑ 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. | 1,000 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 62 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — | — |
| Liftoff mass | 433 tas of [1] ↑ Best | — | — |
| Success rate | 100% (6/6)as of [1] | 100% since 2024-11-27 debutas of [1] ↑ Best | 0/1 (first flight failed)as of [1]First flight from Andøya Spaceport (2025-03-30): liftoff succeeded but the rocket was terminated ~30 seconds in after a vent valve opened unexpectedly, causing loss of attitude control. Second flight ('Onward and Upward') repeatedly delayed through 2026 (weather, a safety-zone fishing vessel, a composite pressure vessel leak, then off-nominal fluid-system behavior as of 2026-06-15) — not yet flown as of this research. |
| Total flights | 6as of [1]All six flights deployed Guowang (China SatNet) internet-constellation satellites, exclusively from Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site. | 2+ (2E variant)as of [1] ↑ Best | 1as of [1] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| 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. | 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. | Germany's first orbital-class launcher attempt; its first flight in March 2025 was Western Europe's first orbital launch attempt from the European mainland. A qualification second flight carrying CubeSats and ESA experiments has slipped repeatedly through 2026. |
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.