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 | Relativity Space | Firefly Aerospace / Northrop Grumman |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | Active | In Development | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Heavy | Medium |
| Propellant | UDMH/N₂O₄ (stages 1–2) + LH₂/LOX (stage 3 YF-75) | LOX / methane | RP-1 / LOX |
| Reusable | No | Yes | Yes |
| Stages | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 1996 | 2026 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 11,200 kgas of [1] | 33,500 kg expendable / 23,500 kg with a reusable first stageas of [1]First flight targeted 2026 (stated plan, not yet confirmed flown as of this research). ↑ Best | 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. |
| Payload to GTO | 5,500 kgas of [1]With 4 strap-on liquid boosters (CZ-3B/E enhanced variant) ↑ Best | — | — |
| Height | 54.84 mas of [1] | 87 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Liftoff mass | 426 tas of [1]Enhanced variant with 4 liquid strap-on boosters ↑ Best | — | — |
| Success rate | ~95%as of [2]~6 failures/partial failures out of ~105+ flights; gradually being superseded by Long March 5 for GTO ↑ Best | — | — |
| Total flights | ~105as of [2] ↑ Best | — | — |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | ~$55M per launch (estimate)as of [1]Total launch price estimate, not a per-kg figure. ↓ 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. | Relativity Space's Falcon-9-class successor to Terran 1, partially 3D-printed, with 13 Aeon R methalox engines on a reusable first stage; second stage and fairing expendable. | 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. |
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.