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 | LandSpace | Blue Origin | Khrunichev / Roscosmos |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇺🇸 USA | 🇷🇺 Russia |
| Status | Active | Active | Active |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Heavy | Heavy |
| Propellant | Methalox (LOX / liquid methane) | LNG / LOX (BE-4); LH₂ / LOX (BE-3U second stage) | RP-1 / LOX (RD-191, all 5 modules) |
| Reusable | No | Yes | No |
| Stages | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| First flight | 2024 | 2025 | 2014 |
| 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. | 45,000 kgas of [1]Reusable first stage; expendable ~45,000 kg. GTO (reusable) ~13,000 kg. ↑ Best | 24,500 kgas of [1]With KVTK cryogenic upper stage (planned); Briz-M gives ~5,400 kg GTO |
| Payload to GTO | — | 13,000 kgas of [1]Reusable first stage configuration ↑ Best | 5,400 kgas of [1]Briz-M upper stage. KVTK would raise this to ~7,500 kg. |
| Height | — | 98 mas of [1] ↑ Best | 64 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | — | 1,016 tas of [1] ↑ Best | 773 tas of [1] |
| Success rate | 100% since 2024-11-27 debutas of [1] ↑ Best | 67%as of [2]NG-1 (Jan 2025) full mission success, booster lost; NG-2 (Nov 2025) success + first Jacklyn booster landing; NG-3 (Apr 2026) partial — payload in wrong orbit, FAA grounded | 100%as of [2]4/4 mission successes: Dec 2014, Dec 2020, Mar 2023, Apr 2024 |
| Total flights | 2+ (2E variant)as of [1] ↑ Best | 3as of [2] | 4as of [2] |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | ~$1,500/kgas of [1]Estimated from ~$67M commercial pricing / 45,000 kg payload capacity ↓ Cheapest | — |
| 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. | Blue Origin's first orbital rocket. The 7-meter payload fairing is the widest of any current production rocket. NG-2 (Nov 2025) achieved the company's first booster landing on drone ship Jacklyn. On May 28, 2026 a vehicle was destroyed in a prelaunch static-fire explosion at LC-36. Damage proved less severe than first feared — Blue Origin (CEO Dave Limp) reported the propellant tanks and water tower were undamaged, the launch tower repairable rather than replaced, and stored first/second stages intact, with LC-36 debris cleared within ~9 days. The company has started reconstruction and now targets a return to flight before the end of 2026 (a timeline some observers call aggressive). | Russia's new-generation heavy-lift rocket built entirely of Russian-manufactured components — a political priority after Proton-M's dependence on Ukrainian components. Five URM-1 universal rocket modules share the same propellant (RP-1/LOX), unlike Proton-M's toxic hypergolics. Flight rate remains very low. |
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.