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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | ISRO | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) | LandSpace |
| Country | 🇮🇳 India | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Active | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Small | Medium |
| Propellant | Solid (PS1/PS3) + UDMH/N₂O₄ (PS2/PS4) — 4 alternating stages | Solid (3 stages) + liquid upper stage | Methalox (LOX / liquid methane) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| First flight | 1993 | 2020 | 2024 |
| Payload to LEO | 3,800 kgas of [1]PSLV-XL with 6 extended solid strap-ons. Standard PSLV-G: 3,250 kg LEO. SSO: ~1,750 kg | 1,500 kgas of [1] | 6,000 kgas of [1]4,000 kg to 500 km SSO. Enhanced variant of the base Zhuque-2 with a common-bulkhead tank, TQ-15 thrust-vectoring engine on stage 2, and a niobium-alloy nozzle extension. A further-improved Block 2 first flew 2026-05-14 with subcooled propellant loading and a 3-ignition second stage. ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | 44 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — | — |
| Liftoff mass | 320 tas of [1]PSLV-XL configuration ↑ Best | 78 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable. | — |
| Success rate | 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). | 80% (4/5)as of [1]Debut flight (2020-07-10) failed; returned to flight 2022-12-07 successfully. | 100% since 2024-11-27 debutas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Total flights | 64as of [2] ↑ Best | 5as of [1] | 2+ (2E variant)as of [1] |
| Cost / kg LEO | ~$4,000/kgas of [1]Estimated from commercial launch contracts ↓ Cheapest | — | — |
| Summary | 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. The vehicle is on a return-to-flight campaign (not retired): PSLV-C63 (TDS-01 technology demonstrator), with strengthened third-stage/PS3 checks following the expert-committee (FAC) review, is targeted for late June / early July 2026. | The larger sibling of Kuaizhou-1A, roughly 3.75x the payload class, road-mobile and solid-fueled, recovering commercial cadence after a 2020 debut failure. | LandSpace's enhanced methalox launcher, the higher-performance successor to the original Zhuque-2 (the first methalox rocket ever to reach orbit, in 2023) — see slug 'zhuque-2' for the original vehicle already in our database. |
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.