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 | LandSpace | Relativity Space |
| Country | 🇯🇵 Japan | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | In Development | Active | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Small | Medium | Heavy |
| Propellant | Liquid biomethane (LBM) / LOX | Methalox (LOX / liquid methane) | LOX / methane |
| Reusable | No | No | Yes |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2027 | 2024 | 2026 |
| 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. | 6,000 kgas of [1]4,000 kg to 500 km SSO. Enhanced variant of the base Zhuque-2 with a common-bulkhead tank, TQ-15 thrust-vectoring engine on stage 2, and a niobium-alloy nozzle extension. A further-improved Block 2 first flew 2026-05-14 with subcooled propellant loading and a 3-ignition second stage. | 33,500 kg expendable / 23,500 kg with a reusable first stageas of [1]First flight targeted 2026 (stated plan, not yet confirmed flown as of this research). ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | — | — | 87 mas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Liftoff mass | — | — | — |
| Success rate | — | 100% since 2024-11-27 debutas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Total flights | — | 2+ (2E variant)as of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | ~$55M per launch (estimate)as of [1]Total launch price estimate, not a per-kg figure. ↓ Cheapest |
| 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. | LandSpace's enhanced methalox launcher, the higher-performance successor to the original Zhuque-2 (the first methalox rocket ever to reach orbit, in 2023) — see slug 'zhuque-2' for the original vehicle already in our database. | Relativity Space's Falcon-9-class successor to Terran 1, partially 3D-printed, with 13 Aeon R methalox engines on a reusable first stage; second stage and fairing expendable. |
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.