Head to head

Atlas SLV-3D Centaur vs Kuaizhou 1A

Two vehicles in the same payload class. Every figure below comes from the same two sources for both rockets, and a row appears only when both publish the input.

Payload to low Earth orbit

Relative

Atlas SLV-3D Centaur: 800 kg

Kuaizhou 1A: 300 kg

Side by side

7 comparable figures

The highlighted value wins the row. Rows where neither direction is better, like length or stage count, highlight nothing.

Metric	Atlas SLV-3D Centaur	Kuaizhou 1A
Flights flown	32	31
Success rate	93.8%	90.3%
Payload to LEO (kg)	800	300
Length (m)	21	19.4
Diameter (m)	3.05	1.4
Launch mass (t)	120	30
Stages	2	4

Atlas SLV-3D Centaur

Flight record

93.8% success rate30 of 32 flown · 2 failed

1973peak 1978 · 7 flights1983

Maiden flight 1973-04-06. Retired.

Kuaizhou 1A

Flight record

90.3% success rate28 of 31 flown · 3 failed

2017peak 2023 · 6 flights2025

Maiden flight 2017-01-09. Still flying.

Atlas SLV-3D Centaur is built by Convair of the United States (company profile on Space Index).Kuaizhou 1A is built by ExPace of China (company profile on Space Index).

Full specifications and the complete launch history for each: Atlas SLV-3D Centaur · Kuaizhou 1A.

Specifications from Launch Library 2 by The Space Devs, launch records from Space Index. Derived figures are computed here; see sources and method.