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 | CASC / SAST | LandSpace |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | In Development | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Propellant | CH₄ / LOX | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) | CH₄ / LOX (Tianque-12 + Tianque-15 upper stage) |
| Reusable | Yes | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2026 | 1992 | 2022 |
| Payload to LEO | 13,000 kgas of [1]Expendable; ~8,000 kg reusable with first-stage return ↑ Best | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg | 6,000 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~4,000 kg |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | ~40 mas of [1] | 41.06 mas of [1] | 49.5 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | ~481 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 232 tas of [1] | 219 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | — | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) ↑ Best | 75%as of [2]3/4 full successes; ZQ-2 Y1 (Dec 2022) reached orbit on stage 1 but 2nd stage failed; ZQ-2 Y2 (Jul 2023) SUCCESS — world's first methane-fueled rocket to reach orbit |
| Total flights | — | ~78as of [2] ↑ Best | 4as of [2] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| 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. | 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. | The world's first methane-fueled rocket to achieve orbit (July 12, 2023), beating SpaceX Starship to that milestone. A commercial Chinese rocket built by LandSpace with vertically-integrated methane propulsion — the same propellant strategy as Starship, Neutron, and Terran R. |
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.