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 | Khrunichev / Roscosmos | CASC / CALT |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | In Development | Retired | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Heavy | Medium |
| Propellant | CH₄ / LOX | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic — all stages) | RP-1 / LOX (YF-100 + YF-115) |
| Reusable | Yes | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| First flight | 2026 | 2001 – 2023 | 2016 |
| Payload to LEO | 13,000 kgas of [1]Expendable; ~8,000 kg reusable with first-stage return | 22,400 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 13,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~5,500 kg |
| Payload to GTO | — | 6,290 kgas of [1]With Briz-M upper stage ↑ Best | — |
| Height | ~40 mas of [1] | 58.2 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 53.1 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | ~481 tas of [1] | 712 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 597 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | — | ~91%as of [2]~13 mission failures out of ~115 flights in Proton-M variant; highly toxic propellant complicated recovery operations | 100%as of [2]12/12 missions, all Tianzhou ISS resupply or CZ-7 tech demo flights ↑ Best |
| Total flights | — | ~115as of [2]Effectively retired ~2023 with Russian government replacing it with Angara A5 ↑ Best | 12as of [2]Most recently Tianzhou-10 cargo to Tiangong (May 11, 2026) |
| 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. | 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. | 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. |
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.