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 | SpaceX | CASC / SAST | Rocket Lab |
| Country | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | In Development | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Super Heavy | Medium | Medium |
| Propellant | CH₄ / LOX | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) | CH₄ / LOX |
| Reusable | Yes | No | Yes |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2023 | 1992 | 2026 |
| Payload to LEO | ~150,000 kgas of [1]SpaceX projected max payload in fully expendable mode; ~100,000 kg reusable ↑ Best | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg | 13,000 kgas of [1]Expendable; ~8,000 kg reusable with first-stage return |
| Payload to GTO | ~21,000 kgas of [1]Reusable configuration estimate ↑ Best | — | — |
| Height | 121 mas of [1]Version 2 (V2) full stack Ship + Super Heavy ↑ Best | 41.06 mas of [1] | ~40 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | ~5,000 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 232 tas of [1] | ~481 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | ~55%as of [2]IFT-1 through IFT-11; ~6 complete mission successes, remainder partial or vehicle lost. No orbital payload deployment yet. | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) ↑ Best | — |
| Total flights | 11as of [2]IFT-1 (Apr 2023) through IFT-11 (May 2026 target). IFT-10 (Aug 2025) achieved full mission: booster caught + Ship splash-down. | ~78as of [2] ↑ 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 introduced Aug 2025. Mechazilla caught the booster on IFT-5 (Oct 2024) and IFT-10 (Aug 2025). Primary vehicle for Artemis HLS lunar landing (Artemis III planned 2026). | 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. | Rocket Lab's medium-lift reusable rocket targeting the $100B constellation replenishment market. Uses a 'hungry hippo' fairings design that opens at the top rather than traditional clamshell separation. First flight delayed to Q4 2026 after a Jan 2026 propellant tank test anomaly. |
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.