Head to head

Long March 3B 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: 11,500 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	Proton-M Briz-M
Flights flown	24	68
Success rate	87.5%	91.2%
Payload to LEO (kg)	11,500	21,000
Payload to GTO (kg)	5,100	4,500
Liftoff thrust (kN)	5,923	10,000
Length (m)	54.8	53
Diameter (m)	3.35	7.4
Launch mass (t)	426	712
Stages	3	4

Long March 3B

Flight record

87.5% success rate21 of 24 flown · 3 failed

1996peak 2020 · 4 flights2023

Maiden flight 1996-02-14. 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 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 · 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.