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 | Relativity Space |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | Active | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Medium | Heavy |
| Propellant | RP-1 / LOX (YF-100 + YF-115) | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) | LOX / methane |
| Reusable | No | No | Yes |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2016 | 1992 | 2026 |
| Payload to LEO | 13,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~5,500 kg | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg | 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 |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 53.1 mas of [1] | 41.06 mas of [1] | 87 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | 597 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 232 tas of [1] | — |
| Success rate | 100%as of [2]12/12 missions, all Tianzhou ISS resupply or CZ-7 tech demo flights ↑ Best | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) | — |
| Total flights | 12as of [2]Most recently Tianzhou-10 cargo to Tiangong (May 11, 2026) | ~78as 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 workhorse medium-lift rocket, used exclusively for Tianzhou automated cargo missions to the Tiangong space station. Designed to replace the Long March 2F for high-cadence LEO/cargo missions. Uses the same YF-100 engines as Long March 5's boosters. | 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. | 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. |
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.