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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) 🇮🇳 India Trust: Operator-primaryⓘ Last verified Active · Last updated 2026-07-26Remove × | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | CASC / SAST | Firefly Aerospace / Northrop Grumman | ISRO / Hindustan Aeronautics Limited |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇮🇳 India |
| Status | Active | In Development | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Medium | Small |
| Propellant | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) | RP-1 / LOX | Solid (HTPB, stages 1–3) / MMH-MON3 liquid (velocity trimming module) |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| First flight | 1992 | 2027 | 2022 |
| Payload to LEO | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg | 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. ↑ Best | 500 kgas of [1]500 km altitude, 35–55° inclination. 300 kg to 500 km SSO. |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 41.06 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — | 34 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 232 tas of [1] ↑ Best | — | 120 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) | — | 2/3 (67%)as of [1]First flight (Aug 2022) partial failure — satellites reached a lower-than-planned orbit. Second and third flights successful. ↑ Best |
| Total flights | ~78as of [2] ↑ Best | — | 3as of [1] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | ₹30–35 crore per launch (~$3.1M–$3.6M)as of [1]Total launch price, not a per-kg figure. ↓ Cheapest |
| Summary | China's most-used sun-synchronous and polar orbit workhorse for small-to-medium military and commercial Earth observation satellites. Launched from Jiuquan and Taiyuan. Uses storable hypergolic propellants for high launch-readiness but produces toxic exhaust. | 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. | ISRO's small-satellite launcher, designed for quick-turnaround dedicated smallsat missions. Full manufacturing, marketing and launch rights were transferred to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in June 2025 under a technology-transfer agreement. |
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.