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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | CASC / SAST | Isar Aerospace | LandSpace |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇩🇪 Germany | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Active | In Development | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Small | Medium |
| Propellant | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) | LOX / kerosene (~80% manufactured in-house) | CH₄ / LOX (9× TQ-12B first stage; TQ-15B vacuum upper stage) |
| Reusable | No | No | Yes |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 1992 | 2025 | 2025 |
| Payload to LEO | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg | 1,000 kgas of [1] | 21,000 kgas of [1]Expendable; ~18,300 kg with first-stage recovery ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 41.06 mas of [1] | — | 76.2 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | 232 tas of [1] | — | ~660 tas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Success rate | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) | 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. | 100%as of [2]1/1 orbital successes (Y1, Dec 3, 2025). First-stage recovery failed — abnormal combustion during the landing burn crashed the booster near the landing zone. ↑ Best |
| Total flights | ~78as of [2] ↑ Best | 1as of [1] | 1as of [3]Second orbital launch and recovery attempt targeted Q2 2026 per LandSpace |
| 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. | 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. | LandSpace's stainless-steel, reusable methalox rocket — China's closest analogue to Falcon 9. The Y1 debut (Dec 3, 2025) reached orbit on the first attempt but lost the booster during its landing attempt; a second flight with another recovery attempt is targeted for Q2 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.