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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | LandSpace | United Launch Alliance | Firefly Aerospace / Northrop Grumman |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | Active | Retired | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Heavy | Medium |
| Propellant | Methalox (LOX / liquid methane) | LH2 / LOX | RP-1 / LOX |
| Reusable | No | No | Yes |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2024 | 2004 – 2024 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 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. | 28,370 kgas of [1] ↑ Best | 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. |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | — |
| Height | — | 70.7 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Liftoff mass | — | 733 tas of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Success rate | 100% since 2024-11-27 debutas of [1] ↑ Best | 93.75% (15/16 full success, 1 partial failure)as of [1] | — |
| Total flights | 2+ (2E variant)as of [1] ↑ Best | 16as of [1] | — |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| Summary | 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. | ULA's triple-common-booster-core heavy-lift launcher, retired 2024-04-09 after its final flight; superseded by Vulcan Centaur, which ULA states offers similar heavy-lift capability at lower cost. | 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.