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 | SpaceX | CASC / SAST |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | Active | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Super Heavy | Heavy | Medium |
| Propellant | LH₂ / LOX (RS-25); solid HTPB (SRBs) | RP-1 / LOX | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2022 | 2018 | 1992 |
| Payload to LEO | 95,000 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 63,800 kgas of [1]Expended side boosters. Fully reusable ~27,500 kg LEO. | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg |
| Payload to GTO | 27,000 kgas of [1]Trans-lunar injection (TLI) payload; GTO not a primary design goal ↑ Best | 26,700 kgas of [1]Expendable configuration; reusable ~8,000 kg | — |
| Height | 98.1 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 70 mas of [1] | 41.06 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | 2,608 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 1,421 tas of [1] | 232 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 | 100%as of [2]12/12 mission successes through Falcon Heavy ViaSat-3 F3 (Apr 29, 2026) ↑ Best | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) |
| Total flights | 2as of [2] | 12as of [2] | ~78as of [2] ↑ Best |
| Cost / kg LEO | ~$40,000+/kgas of [3]NASA OIG (2023) estimated $4.1B per Artemis SLS/Orion flight; total program $23B+ development cost | ~$1,400/kgas of [1]Based on ~$97M list price / 63,800 kg (expendable configuration) ↓ 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. | Currently the most powerful operational rocket in the world. Three Falcon 9 cores sharing propellant cross-feed produce 5.1 MN of sea-level thrust. Primary mission profile: DoD/NRO GEO payloads and planetary science. | China's most-used sun-synchronous and polar orbit workhorse for small-to-medium military and commercial Earth observation satellites. Launched from Jiuquan and Taiyuan. Uses storable hypergolic propellants for high launch-readiness but produces toxic exhaust. |
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.