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 | Isar Aerospace | United Launch Alliance | LandSpace |
| Country | 🇩🇪 Germany | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | In Development | Retired | Active |
| Vehicle class | Small | Heavy | Medium |
| Propellant | LOX / kerosene (~80% manufactured in-house) | LH2 / LOX | CH₄ / LOX (Tianque-12 + Tianque-15 upper stage) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2025 | 2004 – 2024 | 2022 |
| Payload to LEO | 1,000 kgas of [1] | 28,370 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 6,000 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~4,000 kg |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | — | 70.7 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 49.5 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | — | 733 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 219 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | 0/1 (first flight failed)as of [1]First flight from Andøya Spaceport (2025-03-30): liftoff succeeded but the rocket was terminated ~30 seconds in after a vent valve opened unexpectedly, causing loss of attitude control. Second flight ('Onward and Upward') repeatedly delayed through 2026 (weather, a safety-zone fishing vessel, a composite pressure vessel leak, then off-nominal fluid-system behavior as of 2026-06-15) — not yet flown as of this research. | 93.75% (15/16 full success, 1 partial failure)as of [1] ↑ Best | 75%as of [2]3/4 full successes; ZQ-2 Y1 (Dec 2022) reached orbit on stage 1 but 2nd stage failed; ZQ-2 Y2 (Jul 2023) SUCCESS — world's first methane-fueled rocket to reach orbit |
| Total flights | 1as of [1] | 16as of [1] ↑ Best | 4as of [2] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| Summary | Germany's first orbital-class launcher attempt; its first flight in March 2025 was Western Europe's first orbital launch attempt from the European mainland. A qualification second flight carrying CubeSats and ESA experiments has slipped repeatedly through 2026. | ULA's triple-common-booster-core heavy-lift launcher, retired 2024-04-09 after its final flight; superseded by Vulcan Centaur, which ULA states offers similar heavy-lift capability at lower cost. | The world's first methane-fueled rocket to achieve orbit (July 12, 2023), beating SpaceX Starship to that milestone. A commercial Chinese rocket built by LandSpace with vertically-integrated methane propulsion — the same propellant strategy as Starship, Neutron, and Terran R. |
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.