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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | SpaceX | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) | Khrunichev / Roscosmos |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China | 🇷🇺 Russia |
| Status | In Development | Active | Retired |
| Vehicle class | Super Heavy | Small | Heavy |
| Propellant | CH₄ / LOX | Solid (3 stages) + liquid upper stage | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic — all stages) |
| Reusable | Yes | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| First flight | 2023 | 2020 | 2001 – 2023 |
| Payload to LEO | ~150,000 kgas of [1]SpaceX projected max payload in fully expendable mode; ~100,000 kg reusable ↑ Best | 1,500 kgas of [1] | 22,400 kgas of [1] |
| Payload to GTO | ~21,000 kgas of [1]Reusable configuration estimate ↑ Best | — | 6,290 kgas of [1]With Briz-M upper stage |
| Height | 121 mas of [1]Version 2 (V2) full stack Ship + Super Heavy ↑ Best | — | 58.2 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | ~5,000 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 78 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable. | 712 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | ~50%as of [2]Flights 1-12; ~6 complete mission successes (incl. Flights 10 and 11), remainder partial or vehicle lost. First payload deploy on Flight 10 (Aug 2025); Flight 12 (V3 debut) lost during descent. | 80% (4/5)as of [1]Debut flight (2020-07-10) failed; returned to flight 2022-12-07 successfully. ↑ Best | ~91%as of [2]~13 mission failures out of ~115 flights in Proton-M variant; highly toxic propellant complicated recovery operations |
| Total flights | 12as of [2]Flight 1 (Apr 2023) through Flight 12 (May 22, 2026 — V3 debut from Pad 2). Flight 11 (Oct 13, 2025) closed out Block 2. | 5as of [1] | ~115as of [2]Effectively retired ~2023 with Russian government replacing it with Angara A5 ↑ Best |
| Cost / kg LEO | ~$600/kgas of [1]SpaceX target figure; not yet achieved in operational configuration ↓ Cheapest | — | — |
| Summary | Largest and most powerful rocket ever flown. Super Heavy booster uses 33 Raptor engines. V3 Ship debuted on Flight 12 (May 22, 2026) from Starbase Pad 2 — it reached space but broke up at the ocean surface, and the vehicle is grounded pending an FAA mishap review. Mechazilla booster catches demonstrated from Flight 5 (Oct 2024) onward; first payload deploy on Flight 10 (Aug 2025). Primary vehicle for the Artemis HLS lunar lander (Artemis III LEO docking demo 2027, first landing on Artemis IV). | The larger sibling of Kuaizhou-1A, roughly 3.75x the payload class, road-mobile and solid-fueled, recovering commercial cadence after a 2020 debut failure. | 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. |
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.