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 | ISRO |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇮🇳 India |
| Status | In Development | Retired | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Heavy | Medium |
| Propellant | CH₄ / LOX | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic — all stages) | Solid (PS1/PS3) + UDMH/N₂O₄ (PS2/PS4) — 4 alternating stages |
| Reusable | Yes | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| First flight | 2026 | 2001 – 2023 | 1993 |
| Payload to LEO | 13,000 kgas of [1]Expendable; ~8,000 kg reusable with first-stage return | 22,400 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 3,800 kgas of [1]PSLV-XL with 6 extended solid strap-ons. Standard PSLV-G: 3,250 kg LEO. SSO: ~1,750 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 | 44 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | ~481 tas of [1] | 712 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 320 tas of [1]PSLV-XL configuration |
| Success rate | — | ~91%as of [2]~13 mission failures out of ~115 flights in Proton-M variant; highly toxic propellant complicated recovery operations | 93.7%as of [2]60/64 mission successes. Two consecutive recent failures: C61 (2024) and C62 (Jan 12, 2026, stage-3 anomaly, 16 satellites lost). ↑ Best |
| Total flights | — | ~115as of [2]Effectively retired ~2023 with Russian government replacing it with Angara A5 ↑ Best | 64as of [2] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | ~$4,000/kgas of [1]Estimated from commercial launch contracts ↓ 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. | 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. | India's most reliable and frequently flown launch vehicle, operational since 1994. Set a world record in Feb 2017 by deploying 104 satellites in a single flight (Cartosat-2D + 103 microsats). Launched Chandrayaan-1 (2008), Mars Orbiter Mission (2013), and Aditya-L1 (2023). The dual C61/C62 failure streak raised concerns about aging solid motor design. |
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.