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 | Avio | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) | CASC / SAST |
| Country | 🇪🇺 Europe | 🇨🇳 China | 🇨🇳 China |
| Status | In Development | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Small | Small | Medium |
| Propellant | Solid (P160C first stage) / LOX-methane (cryogenic upper stage) | Solid (3 stages) + liquid-fueled 4th stage | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic all stages) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| First flight | 2027 | 2017 | 1992 |
| Payload to LEO | — | 400 kgas of [1] | 3,500 kgas of [1]SSO capacity ~1,300 kg; standard LEO 3,500 kg ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | — | 19.4 mas of [1] | 41.06 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | — | 30 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable — road-mobile solid launcher. | 232 tas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Success rate | — | ~85% (23 successes, 3 failures, 1 partial failure of 27)as of [1] ↑ Best | 98.7%as of [2]~77/78 successes; one known failure (CZ-2D Y7, Mar 1995 upper-stage anomaly) |
| Total flights | — | 27as of [1] | ~78as of [2] ↑ Best |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| Summary | The next evolution of ESA's Vega line: replaces the Zefiro-9 and AVUM+ stages with a single cryogenic LOX/methane upper stage powered by the new M10 engine, adding multi-orbit deployment flexibility. First flight is a stated target (2027), not yet flown. | CASIC's road-mobile, quick-response small solid launcher, operated commercially by ExPace since 2017 — one of the higher-cadence Chinese small-lift vehicles. | 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. |
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.