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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 | Interstellar Technologies |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| Status | Active | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Medium | Small |
| Propellant | RP-1 / LOX | Methalox (LOX / liquid methane) | Liquid biomethane (LBM) / LOX |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2024 | 2024 | 2027 |
| 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. | 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 | 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 | — |
| 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 | — |
| 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. | 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.