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 | SpaceX | Khrunichev / Roscosmos |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇷🇺 Russia |
| Status | In Development | Active | Retired |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Medium | Heavy |
| Propellant | CH₄ / LOX | RP-1 / LOX | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic — all stages) |
| Reusable | Yes | Yes | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| First flight | 2026 | 2010 | 2001 – 2023 |
| Payload to LEO | 13,000 kgas of [1]Expendable; ~8,000 kg reusable with first-stage return | 22,800 kgas of [1]Reusable first stage (expended gives 22,800 kg; reused gives ~15,600 kg) ↑ Best | 22,400 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | — | 8,300 kgas of [1]Expendable configuration. Reusable GTO capacity ~5,500 kg. ↑ Best | 6,290 kgas of [1]With Briz-M upper stage |
| Height | ~40 mas of [1] | 70 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 58.2 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | ~481 tas of [1] | 549 tas of [1] | 712 tas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Success rate | — | 99.5%as of [2]634/637 full successes; Block 5 alone 580/581 = 99.8% ↑ Best | ~91%as of [2]~13 mission failures out of ~115 flights in Proton-M variant; highly toxic propellant complicated recovery operations |
| Total flights | — | 637as of [2] ↑ Best | ~115as of [2]Effectively retired ~2023 with Russian government replacing it with Angara A5 |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | ~$2,720/kgas of [1]Based on $67M list price / 22,800 kg LEO (expendable) ↓ 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. | The world's most frequently flown orbital rocket. Block 5 first stages have landed over 280 times and reflown up to 23 times. Backbone of Starlink and commercial crewed launches. | 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. |
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.