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 | RKTs Progress | Khrunichev / Roscosmos |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇷🇺 Russia |
| Status | Active | Active | Retired |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Medium | Heavy |
| Propellant | Methalox (LOX / liquid methane) | RP-1 / LOX | UDMH / N₂O₄ (hypergolic — all stages) |
| Reusable | No | No | No |
| Stages | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| First flight | 2024 | 2026 | 2001 – 2023 |
| 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. | 18,000 kgas of [1]Uncrewed configuration. | 22,400 kgas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Payload to GTO | — | — | 6,290 kgas of [1]With Briz-M upper stage ↑ Best |
| Height | — | 61.9 m (uncrewed) / 65.9 m (crewed variant)as of [1] ↑ Best | 58.2 mas of [1] |
| Liftoff mass | — | 530 tas of [1] | 712 tas of [1] ↑ Best |
| Success rate | 100% since 2024-11-27 debutas of [1] ↑ Best | — | ~91%as of [2]~13 mission failures out of ~115 flights in Proton-M variant; highly toxic propellant complicated recovery operations |
| Total flights | 2+ (2E variant)as of [1] | 1 (suborbital test)as of [1]First flight 2026-04-30 was a suborbital test, not yet a full orbital mission per this source. | ~115as of [2]Effectively retired ~2023 with Russian government replacing it with Angara A5 ↑ Best |
| 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. | Russia's replacement for the Ukrainian-built Zenit, restoring medium-lift capability lost after 2014. Uses the RD-171MV — described as the most powerful liquid-fuel rocket engine in the world — on its first stage, launching from Baikonur. | Russia's dominant heavy-lift rocket for GEO comsats and planetary missions from 1965 (Proton family) through 2023 (Proton-M). Notorious for its hypergolic propellant — a highly toxic UDMH/N₂O₄ combination that caused environmental concerns at Baikonur. Replaced by Angara A5. |
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.