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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Blue Origin | Khrunichev / Roscosmos | Isar Aerospace |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇩🇪 Germany |
| Status | Active | Retired | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Heavy | Small |
| Propellant | LNG / LOX (BE-4); LH₂ / LOX (BE-3U second stage) | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic — all stages) | LOX / kerosene (~80% manufactured in-house) |
| Reusable | Yes | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| First flight | 2025 | 2001 – 2023 | 2025 |
| Payload to LEO | 45,000 kgas of [1]Reusable first stage; expendable ~45,000 kg. GTO (reusable) ~13,000 kg. ↑ Best | 22,400 kgas of [1] | 1,000 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | 13,000 kgas of [1]Reusable first stage configuration ↑ Best | 6,290 kgas of [1]With Briz-M upper stage | — |
| Height | 98 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 58.2 mas of [1] | — |
| Liftoff mass | 1,016 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 712 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%as of [2]~13 mission failures out of ~115 flights in Proton-M variant; highly toxic propellant complicated recovery operations ↑ Best | 0/1 (first flight failed)as of [1]First flight from Andøya Spaceport (2025-03-30): liftoff succeeded but the rocket was terminated ~30 seconds in after a vent valve opened unexpectedly, causing loss of attitude control. Second flight ('Onward and Upward') repeatedly delayed through 2026 (weather, a safety-zone fishing vessel, a composite pressure vessel leak, then off-nominal fluid-system behavior as of 2026-06-15) — not yet flown as of this research. |
| Total flights | 3as of [2] | ~115as of [2]Effectively retired ~2023 with Russian government replacing it with Angara A5 ↑ Best | 1as of [1] |
| 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. 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). | 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. | Germany's first orbital-class launcher attempt; its first flight in March 2025 was Western Europe's first orbital launch attempt from the European mainland. A qualification second flight carrying CubeSats and ESA experiments has slipped repeatedly through 2026. |
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.