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 | Khrunichev / Roscosmos | Northrop Grumman |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | Active | Retired | Retired |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Heavy | Medium |
| Propellant | RP-1 / LOX (YF-100 + YF-115) | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic — all stages) | RP-1 / LOX (RD-181 first stage) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| First flight | 2016 | 2001 – 2023 | 2013 – 2023 |
| Payload to LEO | 13,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~5,500 kg | 22,400 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 8,000 kgas of [1]Antares 230+ configuration; primarily used for ~3,500–3,800 kg Cygnus cargo |
| Payload to GTO | — | 6,290 kgas of [1]With Briz-M upper stage ↑ Best | — |
| Height | 53.1 mas of [1] | 58.2 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 41 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 597 tas of [1] | 712 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 298 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | 100%as of [2]12/12 missions, all Tianzhou ISS resupply or CZ-7 tech demo flights ↑ Best | ~91%as of [2]~13 mission failures out of ~115 flights in Proton-M variant; highly toxic propellant complicated recovery operations | 91.7%as of [2]11/12 successes; Orb-3 (CRS-3) exploded at liftoff Oct 2014 |
| Total flights | 12as of [2]Most recently Tianzhou-10 cargo to Tiangong (May 11, 2026) | ~115as of [2]Effectively retired ~2023 with Russian government replacing it with Angara A5 ↑ Best | 12as of [2]Final Antares flight was NG-19 (Aug 1, 2023). NG-20+ moved to Falcon 9 due to Antares RD-181 engine supply disruption (Russia sanctions). |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| 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. | Russia's dominant heavy-lift rocket for GEO comsats and planetary missions from 1965 (Proton family) through 2023 (Proton-M). Notorious for its hypergolic propellant — a highly toxic UDMH/N₂O₄ combination that caused environmental concerns at Baikonur. Replaced by Angara A5. | Primary launch vehicle for Cygnus ISS cargo missions from 2013–2023. Its Ukrainian-built Zenit-derived first stage and Russian RD-181 engines became untenable after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Northrop switched NG-20 onward to Falcon 9 while Antares 330 (with Firefly Miranda engines) is in development. |
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.