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 | Interstellar Technologies | ExPace (CASIC subsidiary) | Firefly Aerospace / Northrop Grumman |
| Country | 🇯🇵 Japan | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | In Development | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Small | Small | Medium |
| Propellant | Liquid biomethane (LBM) / LOX | Solid (3 stages) + liquid-fueled 4th stage | RP-1 / LOX |
| Reusable | No | No | Yes |
| Stages | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| First flight | 2027 | 2017 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 250 kgas of [1]500 km SSO. No flight attempts as of this research — follows the company's successful suborbital MOMO sounding-rocket program. A larger orbital vehicle, DECA, was announced January 2023. | 400 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 | — | — | — |
| Height | — | 19.4 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Liftoff mass | — | 30 tas of [1]Transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) capable — road-mobile solid launcher. ↑ Best | — |
| Success rate | — | ~85% (23 successes, 3 failures, 1 partial failure of 27)as of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Total flights | — | 27as of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| Summary | A liquid-biomethane orbital smallsat launcher from Interstellar Technologies, Japan's most established private rocket startup by suborbital flight heritage, though not yet flown to orbit. | CASIC's road-mobile, quick-response small solid launcher, operated commercially by ExPace since 2017 — one of the higher-cadence Chinese small-lift vehicles. | 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.