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 | CASC / CALT | JAXA / IHI Aerospace |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| Status | Active | Active | Retired |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Medium | Small |
| Propellant | LNG / LOX (BE-4); LH₂ / LOX (BE-3U second stage) | RP-1 / LOX (YF-100 + YF-115) | Solid (HTPB — all stages) |
| Reusable | Yes | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| First flight | 2025 | 2016 | 2013 – 2022 |
| Payload to LEO | 45,000 kgas of [1]Reusable first stage; expendable ~45,000 kg. GTO (reusable) ~13,000 kg. ↑ Best | 13,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~5,500 kg | 590 kgas of [1]500 kg to SSO. Enhanced Epsilon (from E-4) added 700 kg LEO via PBS liquid kick stage. |
| Payload to GTO | 13,000 kgas of [1]Reusable first stage configuration ↑ Best | — | — |
| Height | 98 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 53.1 mas of [1] | 26 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 1,016 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 597 tas of [1] | 96 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 | 100%as of [2]12/12 missions, all Tianzhou ISS resupply or CZ-7 tech demo flights ↑ Best | 83.3%as of [2]5/6 successes. E-6 (Oct 12, 2022) PBS upper stage failed to ignite, eight satellites lost. Epsilon S (next-generation) ground test anomaly Jan 2023 effectively ended the programme. |
| Total flights | 3as of [2] | 12as of [2]Most recently Tianzhou-10 cargo to Tiangong (May 11, 2026) ↑ Best | 6as of [2] |
| Cost / kg LEO | ~$1,500/kgas of [1]Estimated from ~$67M commercial pricing / 45,000 kg payload capacity ↓ 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. | 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. | JAXA's small solid-fuel rocket derived from the M-V rocket heritage. Designed for highly autonomous operations — launch preparations could be managed by just 8 people. The sixth and final E-6 mission (Oct 2022) failed when the PBS kick stage didn't ignite; a ground explosion during Epsilon S testing (Jan 2023) ended the programme. |
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.