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 | SpaceX | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) |
| Country | 🇩🇪 Germany | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | In Development | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Small | Heavy | Small |
| Propellant | LOX / kerosene (~80% manufactured in-house) | RP-1 / LOX | Solid (3 stages) + liquid-fueled 4th stage |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| First flight | 2025 | 2018 | 2017 |
| Payload to LEO | 1,000 kgas of [1] | 63,800 kgas of [1]Expended side boosters. Fully reusable ~27,500 kg LEO. ↑ Best | 400 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | — | 26,700 kgas of [1]Expendable configuration; reusable ~8,000 kg ↑ Best | — |
| Height | — | 70 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 19.4 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | — | 1,421 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 30 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable — road-mobile solid launcher. |
| 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. | 100%as of [2]12/12 mission successes through Falcon Heavy ViaSat-3 F3 (Apr 29, 2026) | ~85% (23 successes, 3 failures, 1 partial failure of 27)as of [1] ↑ Best |
| Total flights | 1as of [1] | 12as of [2] | 27as of [1] ↑ Best |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | ~$1,400/kgas of [1]Based on ~$97M list price / 63,800 kg (expendable configuration) ↓ Cheapest | — |
| 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. | 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. | CASIC's road-mobile, quick-response small solid launcher, operated commercially by ExPace since 2017 — one of the higher-cadence Chinese small-lift vehicles. |
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.