Launch vehicles
DraftThis page is a snapshot of a fast-moving field. Vehicle performance figures are marketing documents as much as engineering ones, and they change with block upgrades, so treat everything here as approximate and check the current user’s guide before committing to a number.
Reading a performance figure
Four qualifications sit behind every published payload number, and omitting any of them makes a comparison meaningless.
- Which orbit
- LEO, sun-synchronous, GTO and TLI figures differ by factors of several. GTO numbers also depend on the residual inclination and how much of the plane change the launcher performs.
- Expendable or reusable
- For recoverable vehicles the difference is 20 to 40%, and the reusable figure is often not published at all.
- Theoretical or contracted
- Maximum performance assumes a payload that exactly fills the mass limit with no adapter margin, which no real mission does.
- Which block
- Vehicles are upgraded continuously. A figure without a block designation and a date is not a specification.
The operational fleet
Approximate performance to low Earth orbit and geostationary transfer orbit.
| Vehicle | Operator | LEO | GTO | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electron | Rocket Lab | 0.3 t | — | Small dedicated launch; electric pump-fed |
| Vega C | Arianespace | 2.3 t to SSO | — | Solid first three stages |
| Soyuz-2 | Roscosmos | 8.2 t | ~3 t | Long service history |
| Falcon 9 | SpaceX | 22.8 t expendable, ~17.5 t reusable | 8.3 t expendable | The highest-cadence vehicle in history |
| Ariane 6 | Arianespace | 21.6 t (A64) | 11.5 t | Replaced Ariane 5 |
| Vulcan Centaur | ULA | 27.2 t (VC6) | 14.5 t | BE-4 methalox first stage |
| H3 | JAXA and MHI | ~4 t to SSO | 6.5 t (H3-24) | Replaced H-IIA |
| LVM3 | ISRO | 8 t | 4 t | Chandrayaan-3 and Gaganyaan |
| Long March 5 | CASC | 25 t | 14 t | China’s heavy lift |
| New Glenn | Blue Origin | 45 t | 13 t | Reusable first stage, 7 m fairing |
| Falcon Heavy | SpaceX | 63.8 t expendable | 26.7 t expendable | |
| SLS Block 1 | NASA | 95 t | 27 t to TLI | Artemis; expendable |
| Starship | SpaceX | 100 t+ target | — | Full reuse intended; in development |
Fairings and payload adapters
The fairing is frequently the binding constraint rather than mass. Large, lightweight structures such as antenna reflectors, optical apertures and deployable arrays run out of volume long before they run out of mass allowance.
| Vehicle | Fairing diameter | Usable length |
|---|---|---|
| Electron | 1.2 m | 2.5 m |
| Falcon 9 | 5.2 m | 11 m |
| Ariane 6 | 5.4 m | up to 20 m |
| Vulcan | 5.4 m | up to 21 m |
| New Glenn | 7 m | 17.9 m |
| Starship | 9 m | ~17 m |
The jump to 7 and 9 m matters. A telescope aperture is limited by what fits, and JWST’s segmented, folding mirror exists because a monolithic primary would not fit in a 5 m fairing. A larger fairing changes what can be designed, not just how much of it can be carried. See In-space manufacturing and assembly for the alternative approach.
Payload adapters and separation systems come in standard interfaces, most commonly a clampband on a conical adapter at diameters such as 937 mm and 1194 mm. For secondary payloads, ESPA rings mount several small satellites around the circumference of the adapter, and ESPA Grande takes larger ones.
Launch sites
Launch site latitude sets the cheapest reachable inclination, and the azimuths available are constrained by where spent stages can safely fall.
| Site | Latitude | Typical inclinations | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kourou | 5.2° N | 5.2° to polar | Best rotation credit of any major site |
| Cape Canaveral | 28.5° N | 28.5° to 57° | Eastward over the Atlantic |
| Vandenberg | 34.7° N | Polar and sun-synchronous | Southward over the Pacific |
| Baikonur | 45.6° N | 51.6° and above | Overflight corridors constrain azimuth |
| Satish Dhawan | 13.7° N | Equatorial and polar | Dogleg required for some polar launches |
| Wenchang | 19.6° N | Equatorial | China’s lowest-latitude site |
| Mahia | 39.3° S | Wide range | Rocket Lab; very permissive azimuths |
The 51.6° inclination of the ISS is a direct consequence of Baikonur’s latitude and its overflight constraints. The station is in that orbit because Soyuz had to be able to reach it, and every other vehicle pays a plane-change penalty to match. See Plane changes and inclination.
Rideshare
Dedicated small launch and rideshare are two different answers to the same question, and rideshare has largely won on price.
| Dedicated small launch | Rideshare | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per kilogram | 50,000 | roughly $6,000 |
| Orbit | Chosen by the customer | Fixed by the primary or by the mission profile |
| Schedule | Chosen by the customer | Set by the provider, and slips with the primary |
| Timing | Launch on demand | Launch when the bus leaves |
Rideshare programmes flying dozens of smallsats at a time have compressed small-launch pricing to the point where several dedicated small launchers have left the market. What dedicated launch still sells is control: a specific orbit, a specific date, and no dependence on someone else’s payload. That is worth a premium to a constellation operator replacing a failed satellite in a specific plane, and to government customers with schedule requirements.
The trade shows up directly in orbit selection. A rideshare customer takes the orbit the bus is going to, then uses onboard propulsion to drift into the plane they want, exploiting the free J₂ nodal drift described in Plane changes and inclination. It is slow and it is free.
References
- SpaceX Falcon User’s Guide, Arianespace Ariane 6 User’s Manual, ULA Vulcan Centaur Rideshare User’s Guide, and Rocket Lab Electron Payload User’s Guide. The primary sources for all performance figures; each is revised regularly.
- Isakowitz, S. J., Hopkins, J. B. and Hopkins, J. P. International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems, 4th ed., AIAA, 2004. Dated, but still the best comparative treatment of vehicle architecture.
- FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation, annual compendium of commercial space transportation statistics.