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 | Blue Origin | Galactic Energy | Interstellar Technologies |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| Status | Active | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Small | Small |
| Propellant | LNG / LOX (BE-4); LH₂ / LOX (BE-3U second stage) | Solid (stages 1–3) + hydrazine liquid upper stage | Liquid biomethane (LBM) / LOX |
| Reusable | Yes | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| First flight | 2025 | 2020 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 45,000 kgas of [1]Reusable first stage; expendable ~45,000 kg. GTO (reusable) ~13,000 kg. ↑ Best | 400 kgas of [1]300 kg to SSO. | 250 kgas of [1]500 km SSO. No flight attempts as of this research — follows the company's successful suborbital MOMO sounding-rocket program. A larger orbital vehicle, DECA, was announced January 2023. |
| Payload to GTO | 13,000 kgas of [1]Reusable first stage configuration ↑ Best | — | — |
| Height | 98 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 20 mas of [1] | — |
| Liftoff mass | 1,016 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 33 tas of [1] | — |
| Success rate | 67%as of [2]NG-1 (Jan 2025) full mission success, booster lost; NG-2 (Nov 2025) success + first Jacklyn booster landing; NG-3 (Apr 2026) partial — payload in wrong orbit, FAA grounded | 91.3% (21/23)as of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Total flights | 3as of [2] | 23as of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Cost / kg LEO | ~$1,500/kgas of [1]Estimated from ~$67M commercial pricing / 45,000 kg payload capacity | ~$4.5M per launchas of [1]Total launch price, not a per-kg figure. ↓ Cheapest | — |
| Summary | Blue Origin's first orbital rocket. The 7-meter payload fairing is the widest of any current production rocket. NG-2 (Nov 2025) achieved the company's first booster landing on drone ship Jacklyn. On May 28, 2026 a vehicle was destroyed in a prelaunch static-fire explosion at LC-36. Damage proved less severe than first feared — Blue Origin (CEO Dave Limp) reported the propellant tanks and water tower were undamaged, the launch tower repairable rather than replaced, and stored first/second stages intact, with LC-36 debris cleared within ~9 days. The company has started reconstruction and now targets a return to flight before the end of 2026 (a timeline some observers call aggressive). | 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. | A liquid-biomethane orbital smallsat launcher from Interstellar Technologies, Japan's most established private rocket startup by suborbital flight heritage, though not yet flown to orbit. |
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.