Head to head

H-IIA vs Tsiklon-3

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

H-IIA: 10,000 kg

Tsiklon-3: 4,100 kg

Side by side

10 comparable figures

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

Metric	H-IIA	Tsiklon-3
Flights flown	50	122
Success rate	98%	94.3%
Payload to LEO (kg)	10,000	4,100
Launch cost	$90M	$15M
Cost per kg to LEO	$9,000	$3,659
Liftoff thrust (kN)	2,260	2,713
Length (m)	53	39.27
Diameter (m)	4	3
Launch mass (t)	285	189
Stages	2	3

H-IIA

Flight record

98% success rate49 of 50 flown · 1 failed

2001peak 2017 · 6 flights2025

Maiden flight 2001-08-29. Retired.

Tsiklon-3

Flight record

94.3% success rate115 of 122 flown · 7 failed

1977peak 1985 · 12 flights2009

Maiden flight 1977-06-24. Retired.

H-IIA is built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan (company profile on Space Index).Tsiklon-3 is built by Yuzhnoye Design Bureau of Ukraine.

Full specifications and the complete launch history for each: H-IIA · Tsiklon-3.

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