Head to head

Long March 2D vs PSLV

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

Long March 2D: 3,500 kg

PSLV: 3,800 kg

Side by side

11 comparable figures

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

Metric	Long March 2D	PSLV
Flights flown	101	30
Success rate	99%	93.3%
Payload to LEO (kg)	3,500	3,800
Payload to SSO (kg)	1,300	1,092
Launch cost	$30M	$16M
Cost per kg to LEO	$8,571	$4,211
Liftoff thrust (kN)	2,962	4,847
Length (m)	38.3	44
Diameter (m)	3.35	2.8
Launch mass (t)	232	230
Stages	2	4

Long March 2D

Flight record

99% success rate100 of 101 flown · 1 failed

1992peak 2022 · 14 flights2026

Maiden flight 1992-08-09. Still flying.

PSLV

Flight record

93.3% success rate28 of 30 flown · 2 failed

1993peak 2007 · 2 flights2024

Maiden flight 2007-04-23. Still flying.

Long March 2D is built by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation of China.PSLV is built by Indian Space Research Organization of India (company profile on Space Index).

Full specifications and the complete launch history for each: Long March 2D · PSLV.

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