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 | Rocket Lab | Galactic Energy | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | In Development | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Small | Small |
| Propellant | CH₄ / LOX | Solid (stages 1–3) + hydrazine liquid upper stage | Solid (3 stages) + liquid-fueled 4th stage |
| Reusable | Yes | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| First flight | 2026 | 2020 | 2017 |
| Payload to LEO | 13,000 kgas of [1]Reusable configuration with downrange barge landing — this is the single payload figure Rocket Lab publishes. ~15,000 kg expendable. ↑ Best | 400 kgas of [1]300 kg to SSO. | 400 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 43 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 20 mas of [1] | 19.4 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | ~481 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 33 tas of [1] | 30 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable — road-mobile solid launcher. |
| Success rate | — | 91.3% (21/23)as of [1] | ~85% (23 successes, 3 failures, 1 partial failure of 27)as of [1] ↑ Best |
| Total flights | — | 23as of [1] | 27as of [1] ↑ Best |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | ~$4.5M per launchas of [1]Total launch price, not a per-kg figure. ↓ Cheapest | — |
| Summary | Rocket Lab's medium-lift reusable rocket targeting the $100B constellation replenishment market. Uses a 'hungry hippo' fairings design that opens at the top rather than traditional clamshell separation. First flight delayed to Q4 2026 after a Jan 2026 propellant tank test anomaly. | Galactic Energy's workhorse small-lift solid rocket — one of the most-flown Chinese commercial launchers — with a sea-launch variant (Ceres-1S, debuted Sep 2023) and a larger Ceres-2 in development. | CASIC's road-mobile, quick-response small solid launcher, operated commercially by ExPace since 2017 — one of the higher-cadence Chinese small-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.