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 | NASA / Boeing | Arianespace / ArianeGroup | JAXA / IHI Aerospace |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇪🇺 Europe | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| Status | Active | Retired | Retired |
| Vehicle class | Super Heavy | Heavy | Small |
| Propellant | LH₂ / LOX (RS-25); solid HTPB (SRBs) | LH₂ / LOX (Vulcain 2) + solid HTPB boosters | Solid (HTPB — all stages) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| First flight | 2022 | 1996 – 2023 | 2013 – 2022 |
| Payload to LEO | 95,000 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 21,000 kgas of [1]Ariane 5 ECA configuration | 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 | 27,000 kgas of [1]Trans-lunar injection (TLI) payload; GTO not a primary design goal ↑ Best | 10,865 kgas of [1]ECA configuration. Ariane 5 ES (ATV) variant: 21,000 kg LEO | — |
| Height | 98.1 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 54 mas of [1] | 26 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 2,608 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 777 tas of [1] | 96 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | 100%as of [2]2/2: Artemis I uncrewed (Nov 16, 2022) + Artemis II crewed lunar flyby (Apr 1–10, 2026) ↑ Best | 97.5%as of [2]113/117 successes. Failures: V501 (Jun 1996, first flight), V63 (Dec 2002, off-course but payload recovered). 2 partial successes. | 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 | 2as of [2] | 117as of [2]VA261 (Jul 5, 2023) was the final Ariane 5 flight. Launched the James Webb Space Telescope (Dec 2021). ↑ Best | 6as 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 | 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. | Europe's dominant heavy-lift rocket for 27 years. Its most famous payload: the James Webb Space Telescope (Dec 25, 2021). Retired Jul 5, 2023 to make way for Ariane 6. Responsible for launching over 250 commercial and scientific payloads including XMM-Newton, Rosetta, and BepiColombo. | 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.