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The global launch market reached $14.1 billion in 2024 — up 34% since 2021.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | LandSpace | Space One | Firefly Aerospace / Northrop Grumman |
| Country | 🇨🇳 China | 🇯🇵 Japan | 🇺🇸 USA |
| Status | Active | In Development | In Development |
| Vehicle class | Medium | Small | Medium |
| Propellant | CH₄ / LOX (9× TQ-12B first stage; TQ-15B vacuum upper stage) | Solid | RP-1 / LOX |
| Reusable | Yes | No | Yes |
| Stages | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| First flight | 2025 | 2024 | 2027 |
| Payload to LEO | 21,000 kgas of [1]Expendable; ~18,300 kg with first-stage recovery ↑ 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 | 76.2 mas of [1] ↑ Best | — | — |
| Liftoff mass | ~660 tas of [1] ↑ Best | — | — |
| Success rate | 100%as of [2]1/1 orbital successes (Y1, Dec 3, 2025). First-stage recovery failed — abnormal combustion during the landing burn crashed the booster near the landing zone. ↑ Best | 0/3 — three consecutive failuresas of [1]2024-03-13: disintegrated shortly after liftoff. 2024-12-18: began tumbling during 1st-stage burn, flight terminated. 2026-03-04: flight termination activated ~70 seconds after liftoff. All three launches flew from Spaceport Kii, Wakayama — Japan's first private-sector spaceport. Program grounded as of this research; precise payload/height/mass specs not confirmed from a primary source. | — |
| Total flights | 1as of [3]Second orbital launch and recovery attempt targeted Q2 2026 per LandSpace | 3as of [1] ↑ Best | — |
| Cost / kg LEO | — | — | — |
| Summary | LandSpace's stainless-steel, reusable methalox rocket — China's closest analogue to Falcon 9. The Y1 debut (Dec 3, 2025) reached orbit on the first attempt but lost the booster during its landing attempt; a second flight with another recovery attempt is targeted for Q2 2026. | A Japanese commercial solid-fuel small launcher that has failed on all three flight attempts through March 2026, putting its commercial viability in serious question. | 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.