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 | Khrunichev / Roscosmos | CASC / CALT | NASA / Boeing |
| Country | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | Retired | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Heavy | Medium | Super Heavy |
| Propellant | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic — all stages) | RP-1 / LOX (YF-100 + YF-115) | LH₂ / LOX (RS-25); solid HTPB (SRBs) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2001 – 2023 | 2016 | 2022 |
| Payload to LEO | 22,400 kgas of [1] | 13,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~5,500 kg | 95,000 kgas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | 6,290 kgas of [1]With Briz-M upper stage | — | 27,000 kgas of [1]Trans-lunar injection (TLI) payload; GTO not a primary design goal ↑ Best |
| Height | 58.2 mas of [1] | 53.1 mas of [1] | 98.1 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | 712 tas of [1] | 597 tas of [1] | 2,608 tas of [1] ↑ Best |
| 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 | 100%as of [2]2/2: Artemis I uncrewed (Nov 16, 2022) + Artemis II crewed lunar flyby (Apr 1–10, 2026) ↑ 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) | 2as of [2] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | ~$40,000+/kgas of [3]NASA OIG (2023) estimated $4.1B per Artemis SLS/Orion flight; total program $23B+ development cost ↓ Cheapest |
| Summary | 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. | NASA's human deep space launch vehicle for the Artemis programme. Uses heritage RS-25 shuttle main engines (4 per flight, expended). Block 1B with Exploration Upper Stage cancelled Feb 2026; Block 1 will fly through Artemis IV at minimum. |
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.