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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | CASC / SAST | Space One | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇯🇵 Japan | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Active | In Development | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Small | Small |
| Propellant | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) | Solid | Solid (3 stages) + liquid upper stage |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| First flight | 1992 | 2024 | 2020 |
| Payload to LEO | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg ↑ Best | — | 1,500 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 41.06 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — | — |
| Liftoff mass | 232 tas of [1] ↑ Best | — | 78 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable. |
| Success rate | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) | 0/3 — three consecutive failuresas of [1]2024-03-13: disintegrated shortly after liftoff. 2024-12-18: began tumbling during 1st-stage burn, flight terminated. 2026-03-04: flight termination activated ~70 seconds after liftoff. All three launches flew from Spaceport Kii, Wakayama — Japan's first private-sector spaceport. Program grounded as of this research; precise payload/height/mass specs not confirmed from a primary source. | 80% (4/5)as of [1]Debut flight (2020-07-10) failed; returned to flight 2022-12-07 successfully. ↑ Best |
| Total flights | ~78as of [2] ↑ Best | 3as of [1] | 5as of [1] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| 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 Japanese commercial solid-fuel small launcher that has failed on all three flight attempts through March 2026, putting its commercial viability in serious question. | The larger sibling of Kuaizhou-1A, roughly 3.75x the payload class, road-mobile and solid-fueled, recovering commercial cadence after a 2020 debut failure. |
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.