Head to head

Long March 3B/E vs Proton-M Briz-M

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 3B/E: 12,000 kg

Proton-M Briz-M: 21,000 kg

Side by side

9 comparable figures

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

Metric	Long March 3B/E	Proton-M Briz-M
Flights flown	78	68
Success rate	97.4%	91.2%
Payload to LEO (kg)	12,000	21,000
Payload to GTO (kg)	5,500	4,500
Liftoff thrust (kN)	5,924	10,000
Length (m)	56.3	53
Diameter (m)	3.35	7.4
Launch mass (t)	456	712
Stages	3	4

Long March 3B/E

Flight record

97.4% success rate76 of 78 flown · 2 failed

2007peak 2025 · 13 flights2026

Maiden flight 2007-05-13. Still flying.

Proton-M Briz-M

Flight record

91.2% success rate62 of 68 flown · 6 failed

2001peak 2013 · 9 flights2023

Maiden flight 2001-04-07. Still flying.

Long March 3B/E is built by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation of China.Proton-M Briz-M is built by Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center of Russia (company profile on Space Index).

Full specifications and the complete launch history for each: Long March 3B/E · Proton-M Briz-M.

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