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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Isar Aerospace | CASC / CALT | Firefly Aerospace / Northrop Grumman |
| Country | 🇩🇪 Germany | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | In Development | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Small | Heavy | Medium |
| Propellant | LOX / kerosene (~80% manufactured in-house) | UDMH/N₂O₄ (stages 1–2) + LH₂/LOX (stage 3 YF-75) | RP-1 / LOX |
| Reusable | No | No | Yes |
| Stages | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| First flight | 2025 | 1996 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 1,000 kgas of [1] | 11,200 kgas of [1] | 16,000+ kgas of [1]5 m fairing. Renamed from 'Medium Launch Vehicle' (MLV) to 'Eclipse' in May 2025 alongside the Northrop Grumman partnership. First stage (7 Miranda engines) designed for reuse from roughly the 6th flight onward; second stage uses one Vira engine. First flight targeted 2027 — stated plan, not yet flown. ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | — | 5,500 kgas of [1]With 4 strap-on liquid boosters (CZ-3B/E enhanced variant) ↑ Best | — |
| Height | — | 54.84 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Liftoff mass | — | 426 tas of [1]Enhanced variant with 4 liquid strap-on boosters ↑ Best | — |
| 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. | ~95%as of [2]~6 failures/partial failures out of ~105+ flights; gradually being superseded by Long March 5 for GTO ↑ Best | — |
| Total flights | 1as of [1] | ~105as of [2] ↑ Best | — |
| 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. | China's primary geostationary transfer vehicle for over 25 years. Launched communications, meteorology, and navigation satellites including Beidou-3 (GEO/IGSO nodes). Being phased out in favour of Long March 5 for heavier GTO payloads as newer domestic communications satellites grow in mass. | A medium-lift successor to Firefly's Alpha, co-developed with Northrop Grumman, aimed at the national-security and commercial medium-lift gap between small launchers and heavy-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.