Launch vehicles of the world

United States

Most U.S. launch vehicles in use since the late 1950s have been based on the Thor IRBM (Thor became known as Thor-Delta and then simply Delta) or the Atlas and Titan ICBMs. The last launch of a vehicle based on the Titan ICBM was on October 19, 2005. The two other families of launch vehicles, Delta and Atlas, have undergone a series of modifications and improvements since they were developed in the 1950s. The Delta II is used to launch small to medium payloads; its lifting power can be adjusted by varying the number of solid rocket motors attached as “strap-ons” to its first stage. The Delta IV and Atlas V vehicles, which both entered service in 2002, have little in common with the original ballistic missiles or early space launchers of the same names. The Delta IV uses the first new rocket engine developed in the United States since the 1970s space shuttle main engine; that engine, the RS-68, burns cryogenic propellant (liquefied gas kept at very low temperatures). The Delta IV has several configurations, depending on the weight and type of payload to be launched. Several configurations use solid rocket motors attached to the vehicle’s core first stage; the Delta IV model used to launch heavy spacecraft consists of three core stages strapped together. The Atlas V uses in its first stage a Russian-produced rocket engine, the RD-180, the design of which is based on the RD-170 developed for the Soviet Energia and Zenit launch vehicles. Like the Delta IV, the Atlas V offers several configurations. These two so-called evolved expendable launch vehicles are intended to be the workhorses for U.S. government launches for years to come.

The launch vehicles described above are used to carry medium-weight spacecraft into orbit or beyond. The Delta IV Heavy vehicle can launch payloads weighing from 6,275 kg (13,805 pounds) to geostationary orbit and can lift more than 23,000 kg (50,600 pounds) to low Earth orbit. Atlas V vehicles can launch payloads weighing up to 20,500 kg (45,100 pounds) to low Earth orbit and up to 3,750 kg (8,250 pounds) to geostationary orbit; a heavier lift version of the Atlas V is also possible. In addition, a number of smaller launch vehicles have been developed to launch lighter spacecraft at a lower overall cost (although not necessarily a lower cost per kilogram), though they have not found a wide market for their use. These include the solid-fueled Pegasus launch vehicle, which had its first flight in 1990 and is launched from under the fuselage of a carrier aircraft. First launched in 1994, a version of Pegasus known as Taurus lifts off from the ground, using a converted ICBM as a first stage and Pegasus as a second stage. A new small launch vehicle called Falcon was first tested in 2006. It was developed on the basis of private investment rather than being funded by government contracts and is intended to be the first in a new, lower-cost family of liquid-fueled expendable launch vehicles.

The U.S. space shuttle is unique in that it combines the functions of launch vehicle and spacecraft. The first partially reusable launch vehicle, it is one of the most complex machines ever developed, with more than 2.5 million parts. Its main elements are an orbiter, which houses a cockpit, a crew compartment, and a large payload bay and has three high-performance reusable rocket engines; a large external tank that contains the cryogenic liquid hydrogen fuel and the liquid oxygen oxidizer for those engines; and two large solid rocket motors, called boosters, attached to the external tank. These solid rocket motors provide 85 percent of the thrust needed for liftoff.

With the promise of partial reusability and routine operation, the shuttle was promoted when it was approved for development in 1972 as a means of providing regular access to space at a much lower cost than was possible with the use of expendable launch vehicles. The intent was to use the space shuttle as the only launch vehicle for all U.S. government spacecraft and to attract commercial spacecraft launch business in competition with other countries’ launchers. The promise of low cost and routine operations has not been realized; preparing the shuttle for each launch has proven to be an intensive and expensive process, and many of the shuttle orbiter’s elements have had to be replaced or refurbished more often than anticipated. Each shuttle launch has cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

The three space shuttle main engines and the two solid rocket motors are ignited at the time of liftoff; combined, they provide 31,000 kilonewtons (7,000,000 pounds) of thrust. The solid rocket motors burn for just over two minutes. They are then detached from the external tank and parachuted into the ocean, where their now empty casings are recovered for reuse. The three space shuttle main engines continue to fire for an additional six and a half minutes, at which point they shut down and the external tank is detached, falling into the atmosphere and disintegrating over the Indian Ocean. A final small firing of the space shuttle’s Orbital Maneuvering System engines, which use hypergolic propellant (fuel that ignites when it comes into contact with its oxidizer), places the orbiter into the desired orbit.

The height of the shuttle stack on the launchpad is 56.1 metres (184.2 feet), and the shuttle orbiter itself is 37.2 metres (122.2 feet) long. The shuttle’s fueled weight at liftoff is 2,000,000 kg (4,500,000 pounds). Unlike other launch vehicles that detach themselves from their spacecraft payload when orbital speed is achieved, the shuttle orbiter, which weighs approximately 104,000 kg (229,000 pounds) when empty, is carried into orbit along with whatever payload it is carrying, two to seven crew members and their supplies, and fuel for orbital maneuvering and reentry. It is thus the heaviest spacecraft ever launched. Maximum weight for cargo in the shuttle’s payload bay was planned to be 28,803 kg (63,367 pounds), but the vehicle has never carried such heavy payloads. The heaviest payload carried into space by the space shuttle was the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its upper stage, which weighed 22,753 kg (50,162 pounds) when the satellite was launched on the STS-93 mission on July 23, 1999.

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A new privately developed family is Falcon, which consists of three launch vehicles—Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy—built by the U.S. corporation SpaceX with funding from South African-born American entrepreneur Elon Musk. Falcon 1 could place a 1,010-kg (2,227-pound) payload into orbit at a lower cost than other launch vehicles could partly because Falcon 1 uses a recoverable first stage. Falcon 9 was designed to compete with the Delta family of launchers in both payload and cost in that it can lift payloads of up to 4,680 kg (10,320 pounds) to geostationary orbit and it has a recoverable first stage. One of the payloads it launched to low Earth orbit is Dragon, a spacecraft designed to carry crew and cargo to the International Space Station. Falcon Heavy has the first stages of three Falcon 9 launch vehicles joined together as its first stage and is designed to carry 53,000 kg (117,000 pounds) to orbit.

The first test flight of the Falcon 1 took place on March 24, 2006, on Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean; it failed just 25 seconds after liftoff. Corrosion between a nut and a fuel line had allowed the line to leak, which caused an engine fire. Later in 2006 SpaceX won a $278 million contract from NASA for three demonstration launches of the company’s Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 launcher in 2009–10. Two subsequent tests of Falcon 1 ended in failure, but on September 28, 2008, Falcon 1 successfully entered Earth orbit. Falcon 1 was replaced by Falcon 9, which had its first test flight on June 4, 2010, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. After several attempts, a Falcon 9 first stage made a successful landing on December 22, 2015, and the first flight that reused a first stage flew on March 30, 2017. The first Falcon Heavy test flight occurred on February 6, 2018.

Russia and Ukraine

Russia has the most diverse set of launch vehicles of any spacefaring country. Most were developed under the Soviet Union, which included both Russia and Ukraine, and both countries continue to produce launch vehicles. Like the United States, the Soviet Union used various ballistic missiles as the basis for several of its space launch vehicles. The approach taken was to use a version of the ballistic missile as a first stage and then add a variety of upper stages to modify the vehicle for different missions. The most famous of these ballistic missiles was the aforementioned R-7, developed in the 1950s under the direction of Sergey Korolyov. Other Soviet launchers based on ICBM first stages include the Kosmos and Tsyklon (which is built in Ukraine).

The Proton and Zenit launch vehicles were not derived from operational ICBMs, although the Proton was first conceived as a large ICBM and then was developed from the start for space use. Introduced in 1965, Proton was the first dedicated Soviet space launch vehicle and still remains in service as the largest Russian launch vehicle. It was never used as an ICBM. Its first stage, unique among Russian launch vehicles, uses hypergolic propellants. With various upper stages, the Proton has been used to launch spacecraft to geostationary orbit (an orbit with a 24-hour period that keeps a satellite above a specific point on Earth) and to destinations beyond Earth orbit and to launch elements of the Salyut and Mir space stations and of the International Space Station.

First launched in 1985, the Zenit launch vehicle was developed in Ukraine. The Zenit uses an RD-170 first-stage engine, considered to be one of the most efficient and reliable rocket engines ever made. It was used by the Soviet Union and is now used by Russia to launch both military payloads to low Earth orbit and communication satellites to geostationary orbit. It was also used as a strap-on booster for the two flights of the heavy-lift Energia launcher.

Several other Russian launch vehicles are derived from decommissioned ballistic missiles. These include Start, Rokot, Dnepr, and the submarine-launched Shtil.

Europe

Several European countries, with France playing a leading role, decided in 1973 that it was essential for Europe to have its own access to space, independent of the United States and the Soviet Union. To develop a new launcher, these countries formed a new space organization, the European Space Agency (ESA), which in turn delegated lead responsibility of what was named the Ariane launch vehicle to the French space agency. The first Ariane was launched in December 1979. There were four generations of this initial booster design, Ariane 1–4. The Ariane family of launch vehicles does not draw directly on ballistic missile technology. The evolution of the family came through modifications or additions of the core stages and addition of strap-on solid rocket motors to increase lifting capacity. Ariane 4 proved a very reliable launcher before it was retired from service in 2003; while it launched differing spacecraft to a variety of orbits, its main mission was placing communications satellites into geostationary orbit.

Europe began developing the Ariane 5 launch vehicle in 1985. Its initial primary mission was to launch a crew-carrying space glider called Hermes; to do this, Ariane 5 had to be more powerful than its predecessors. Unlike Ariane 1–4, which used first-stage engines fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen, Ariane 5 has a single engine fueled by liquid hydrogen, with two large strap-on solid rocket motors. The first launch of Ariane 5, in 1996, was a failure. For its first six years in operation, there was a mixed history of mainly successes but also several failures. Since 2003 Ariane 5 has not had any failures. Ariane 5 has been upgraded to increase its lifting capacity and reliability, and the intent of the ESA is to use Ariane 5 well into the future as its principal launch vehicle. A commercially oriented company, Arianespace, was created in 1980 to manage Ariane marketing, production, and launch operations.

In order to complement Ariane 5, the ESA in 2000 decided to develop a small launch vehicle called Vega. The first launch for this vehicle happened in 2012. In 2003 the ESA also decided to build a launch facility for the Russian Soyuz launcher at the European launch site at Kourou, French Guiana. This would give Europe a medium-lift launch vehicle capability and could also provide Europe with the capability to launch humans into space, since that is one of the roles that the Soyuz launcher plays for Russia. The first Soyuz rocket launched from Kourou in 2011.

China

Like the United States and the Soviet Union, China’s first launch vehicles were also based on ballistic missiles. The Chang Zheng 1 (CZ-1, or Long March 1) vehicle, which put China’s first satellite into orbit in 1970, was based on the Dong Feng 3 IRBM, and the Chang Zheng 2 family of launch vehicles, which has been used for roughly half of Chinese launches, was based on the Dong Feng 5 ICBM. There are several models of the CZ-2 vehicle, with different first stages and solid strap-ons; a CZ-2F vehicle was used to launch the first Chinese astronaut into space in October 2003. There are also CZ-3 and CZ-4 launchers. The CZ-3 is optimized for launches to geostationary orbits, and the CZ-4, first launched in 1988, uses hypergolic propellants rather than the conventional kerosene–liquid oxygen combination used in previous Chang Zheng variants. China has begun development of a second-generation family of launchers, identified as CZ-5, or Long March 5, that are not based on an ICBM design; these vehicles can launch payloads to geostationary orbit that are more than five times heavier than those carried by the CZ-4.

Japan

Until 2003 Japan had three separate space agencies, two of which developed their own line of launch vehicles. Japan did not have a previous ballistic missile program.

Japan’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences based its launch vehicles on the use of solid propellants. Its Lambda L-4S vehicle sent the first Japanese satellite, Osumi, into orbit in 1970. Each subsequent launcher in the Mu series gave the institute greater lifting power for its scientific satellites, with the M-5 vehicle, first launched in 1997, capable of sending spacecraft beyond Earth orbit.

During the 1970s the National Space Development Agency developed the N-I and N-II launchers based on licensed U.S. Delta technology. As an interim step to its own launch vehicle, in the 1980s the agency next developed the H-I, which had a Delta-derived first stage but a Japanese-designed cryogenically fueled upper stage. In 1984 Japan decided to develop an all-Japanese launch vehicle, the H-II, using cryogenic propellants in both stages and a very advanced first-stage rocket engine. The H-II was first launched in 1994; it proved a very expensive vehicle because of its total dependence on Japanese-manufactured components. Thus, Japan decided in 1996 to develop an H-IIA vehicle that would use some foreign components and simplified manufacturing techniques to reduce the vehicle’s costs. There are several models of the H-IIA, with both solid rocket motors and liquid-fueled strap-ons possible. The first H-IIA launch took place in August 2001.

India

India launched its first satellite in 1980 using the four-stage solid-fueled Satellite Launch Vehicle 3 (SLV-3), which was developed from the U.S. Scout launch vehicle first used in the 1960s. India did not have a prior ballistic missile program, but parts of the SLV-3 were later incorporated into India’s first IRBM, Agni. The four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) was then developed; it used a mixture of solid- and liquid-fueled stages. The first PSLV launch took place in 1993. During the 1990s India developed the liquid-fueled Geostationary Space Launch Vehicle (GSLV), which used cryogenic fuel in its upper stage. The GSLV was first launched in 2001. A more powerful launch vehicle, the LVM3, was developed in the 2010s, and the Human Rated Launch Vehicle (HRLV) version of the LVM3 is scheduled to launch the first crewed flight of the Gaganyaan spacecraft in 2024. The PSLV, GSLV, and LVM3 all remain in service.

Israel

Israel’s Shavit launch vehicle is a small three-stage solid-fueled vehicle, first launched in 1988. It was based on the Jericho 2 ballistic missile. Because of its geographic location and hostile relations with surrounding countries, Israel must launch its vehicles to the west, over the Mediterranean Sea, in order to avoid flying over those countries. This necessity imposes a penalty of 30 percent on the Shavit’s lifting capability, since the Shavit is unable to take advantage of the velocity imparted by Earth’s rotation.

Iran

Iran’s launch vehicle is the Safīr (Farsi for “messenger”). It has two liquid-fueled stages and is based on the North Korean Taepodong-1 missile. It is 22 metres (72 feet) long and 1.4 metres (4.6 feet) across. Its estimated payload is less than 100 kg (220 pounds). On February 2, 2009, a Safīr rocket launched Omīd, the first satellite put into orbit by Iran.