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 | Roscosmos / Progress Rocket Space Centre | JAXA / IHI Aerospace | NASA / Boeing |
| Country | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇯🇵 Japan | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | Active | Retired | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Small | Super Heavy |
| Propellant | RP-1 / LOX | Solid (HTPB — all stages) | LH₂ / LOX (RS-25); solid HTPB (SRBs) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| First flight | 2004 | 2013 – 2022 | 2022 |
| Payload to LEO | 8,200 kgas of [1]Soyuz-2.1b with Fregat upper stage; 2.1a variant ~7,020 kg LEO | 590 kgas of [1]500 kg to SSO. Enhanced Epsilon (from E-4) added 700 kg LEO via PBS liquid kick stage. | 95,000 kgas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | 3,250 kgas of [1]With Fregat-M upper stage | — | 27,000 kgas of [1]Trans-lunar injection (TLI) payload; GTO not a primary design goal ↑ Best |
| Height | 46.3 mas of [1] | 26 mas of [1] | 98.1 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | 312 tas of [1] | 96 tas of [1] | 2,608 tas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Success rate | 97%as of [2]~160/165 mission successes since 2004 per aggregated launch logs | 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. | 100%as of [2]2/2: Artemis I uncrewed (Nov 16, 2022) + Artemis II crewed lunar flyby (Apr 1–10, 2026) ↑ Best |
| Total flights | ~165as of [2] ↑ Best | 6as of [2] | 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 primary medium-lift workhorse, descended from the Soyuz family that has flown since 1966. Carries both crewed Soyuz spacecraft and Cygnus-class cargo. Fregat upper stage significantly expands mission flexibility. Production continues at Samara (now TsSKB-Progress). | 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. | 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.