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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Roscosmos / Progress Rocket Space Centre | CASC / SAST | Khrunichev / Roscosmos |
| Country | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇨🇳 China | 🇷🇺 Russia |
| Status | Active | Active | Retired |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Medium | Heavy |
| Propellant | RP-1 / LOX | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic — all stages) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| First flight | 2004 | 1992 | 2001 – 2023 |
| Payload to LEO | 8,200 kgas of [1]Soyuz-2.1b with Fregat upper stage; 2.1a variant ~7,020 kg LEO | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg | 22,400 kgas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | 3,250 kgas of [1]With Fregat-M upper stage | — | 6,290 kgas of [1]With Briz-M upper stage ↑ Best |
| Height | 46.3 mas of [1] | 41.06 mas of [1] | 58.2 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | 312 tas of [1] | 232 tas of [1] | 712 tas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Success rate | 97%as of [2]~160/165 mission successes since 2004 per aggregated launch logs | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) ↑ Best | ~91%as of [2]~13 mission failures out of ~115 flights in Proton-M variant; highly toxic propellant complicated recovery operations |
| Total flights | ~165as of [2] ↑ Best | ~78as of [2] | ~115as of [2]Effectively retired ~2023 with Russian government replacing it with Angara A5 |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| 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). | 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. | 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. |
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.