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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | CASC / CALT | CASC / SAST | NASA / Boeing |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | Active | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Medium | Super Heavy |
| Propellant | UDMH/N₂O₄ (stages 1–2) + LH₂/LOX (stage 3 YF-75) | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) | LH₂ / LOX (RS-25); solid HTPB (SRBs) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 1996 | 1992 | 2022 |
| Payload to LEO | 11,200 kgas of [1] | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg | 95,000 kgas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | 5,500 kgas of [1]With 4 strap-on liquid boosters (CZ-3B/E enhanced variant) | — | 27,000 kgas of [1]Trans-lunar injection (TLI) payload; GTO not a primary design goal ↑ Best |
| Height | 54.84 mas of [1] | 41.06 mas of [1] | 98.1 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | 426 tas of [1]Enhanced variant with 4 liquid strap-on boosters | 232 tas of [1] | 2,608 tas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Success rate | ~95%as of [2]~6 failures/partial failures out of ~105+ flights; gradually being superseded by Long March 5 for GTO | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) | 100%as of [2]2/2: Artemis I uncrewed (Nov 16, 2022) + Artemis II crewed lunar flyby (Apr 1–10, 2026) ↑ Best |
| Total flights | ~105as of [2] ↑ Best | ~78as of [2] | 2as of [2] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | ~$40,000+/kgas of [3]NASA OIG (2023) estimated $4.1B per Artemis SLS/Orion flight; total program $23B+ development cost ↓ Cheapest |
| Summary | China's primary geostationary transfer vehicle for over 25 years. Launched communications, meteorology, and navigation satellites including Beidou-3 (GEO/IGSO nodes). Being phased out in favour of Long March 5 for heavier GTO payloads as newer domestic communications satellites grow in mass. | 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. | NASA's human deep space launch vehicle for the Artemis programme. Uses heritage RS-25 shuttle main engines (4 per flight, expended). Block 1B with Exploration Upper Stage cancelled Feb 2026; Block 1 will fly through Artemis IV at minimum. |
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.