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 | GSLV Mk III (LVM3) 🇮🇳 India Trust: Agency-primaryⓘ Last verified Active · Last updated 2026-06-01Remove × | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | CASC / SAST | SpaceX | ISRO |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇮🇳 India |
| Status | Active | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Heavy | Heavy |
| Propellant | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) | RP-1 / LOX | Solid (S200 boosters) + UDMH/N₂O₄ (L110) + LH₂/LOX (C25) |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| First flight | 1992 | 2018 | 2017 |
| Payload to LEO | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg | 63,800 kgas of [1]Expended side boosters. Fully reusable ~27,500 kg LEO. ↑ Best | 10,000 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | — | 26,700 kgas of [1]Expendable configuration; reusable ~8,000 kg ↑ Best | 4,000 kgas of [1] |
| Height | 41.06 mas of [1] | 70 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 43.43 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 232 tas of [1] | 1,421 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 643 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) | 100%as of [2]12/12 mission successes through Falcon Heavy ViaSat-3 F3 (Apr 29, 2026) ↑ Best | 100%as of [2]10/10 missions since development flight 2014 (D1). Production flights since 2017. ↑ Best |
| Total flights | ~78as of [2] ↑ Best | 12as of [2] | 10as of [2] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | ~$1,400/kgas of [1]Based on ~$97M list price / 63,800 kg (expendable configuration) ↓ Cheapest | ~$4,500/kgas of [1]Estimated from OneWeb commercial contract ~$450M for 36 satellites (~5 tonne batch to GTO) |
| 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. | Currently the most powerful operational rocket in the world. Three Falcon 9 cores sharing propellant cross-feed produce 5.1 MN of sea-level thrust. Primary mission profile: DoD/NRO GEO payloads and planetary science. | India's most powerful rocket. Launched Chandrayaan-3 (Moon lander) in Jul 2023 and OneWeb internet satellites commercially. Renamed LVM3 (Launch Vehicle Mark 3) in 2022. The CE-20 cryogenic engine was entirely ISRO-developed — previously India depended on Russian technology for the GSLV Mk II. |
28 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.