A medium-lift launch vehicle (MLV) is a

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage ...

that is capable of lifting between by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

classification or between by Russian classification of

payload Payload is the object or the entity that is being carried by an aircraft or launch vehicle. Sometimes payload also refers to the carrying capacity of an aircraft or launch vehicle, usually measured in terms of weight. Depending on the nature of t ...

into

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

(LEO).NASA Space Technology Roadmaps – Launch Propulsion Systems, p.11
: "Small: 0-2t payloads, Medium: 2-20t payloads, Heavy: 20-50t payloads, Super Heavy: >50t payloads" An MLV is between a

small-lift launch vehicle A small-lift launch vehicle is a rocket orbital launch vehicle that is capable of lifting or less (by NASA classification) or under (by Roscosmos classification) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). The next larger category is medium-lift l ...

and a

heavy-lift launch vehicle A heavy-lift launch vehicle (HLV) is an orbital launch vehicle capable of lifting payloads between (by NASA classification) or between (by Russian classification) into low Earth orbit (LEO).50t payloads" Heavy-lift launch vehicles often carry ...

. Medium-lift vehicles comprise the majority of orbital launches , with both the

Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз (Russian language, Russian and Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Soviet Union, Union of Soviet Socialist Republi ...

and

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. The first Falcon 9 launch was on June 4, 2010, an ...

having launched several hundred times.

History

Soviet Union and Russia

The Soviet

R-7 family The R-7 () rocket family is a series of launch vehicles descended from the Soviet R-7 Semyorka, developed in the 1950s as the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). While the R-7 proved impractical as a weapon, it became a corne ...

was based on the world's first

intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...

(ICBM).

Sputnik Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space progra ...

was a small-lift derivative that carried the first satellite into orbit, and the R-7 design quickly grew in capacity, with

Luna Luna commonly refers to: * Earth's Moon, named "Luna" in Latin, Spanish and other languages * Luna (goddess) In Sabine and ancient Roman religion and myth, Luna is the divine embodiment of the Moon (Latin ''Lūna'' ). She is often presented as t ...

launching in 1958. The 1960s saw the R-7 series continue to develop, with

Vostok 1 Vostok 1 (, ) was the first spaceflight of the Vostok programme and the first human spaceflight, human orbital spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA space capsule was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 12 April 1961, with Soviet astronaut, c ...

carrying the first human into space, Voskhod carrying multiple crew members, and the first

. , Soyuz variants are still operational and have launched over 1,100 times. The R-7 family has launched more times than any other family of orbital rockets.

United States

The first US medium-lift vehicle was a purpose-built orbital launch vehicle, the

Saturn I The Saturn I was a rocket designed as the United States' first medium lift launch vehicle for up to low Earth orbit Payload (air and space craft), payloads.Terminology has changed since the 1960s; back then, 20,000 pounds was considered "heavy l ...

. Saturn I first launched in 1961, and the Saturn family would eventually grow into the heavy-lift

Saturn IB The Saturn IB (also known as the uprated Saturn I) was an American launch vehicle commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the Apollo program. It uprated the Saturn I by replacing the S-IV second stage (, 43,3 ...

and the super-heavy lift

Saturn V The Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, had multistage rocket, three stages, and was powered by liquid-propel ...

. ICBM-derived launch vehicles for the US include the

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...

Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

, and

Delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

families.

Atlas-Centaur The Atlas-Centaur was a United States expendable launch vehicle derived from the SM-65 Atlas D missile. The vehicle featured a Centaur (rocket stage), Centaur upper stage, the first such stage to use high-performance liquid hydrogen as fuel. La ...

launched in 1962 and marked the first use of a

Centaur A centaur ( ; ; ), occasionally hippocentaur, also called Ixionidae (), is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse that was said to live in the mountains of Thessaly. In one version o ...

upper stage. , the derivative

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas (rocket family), Atlas launch vehicle family. It was developed by Lockheed Martin and has been operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA) since 2006. Primarily used to ...

is still operational; Centaur has seen extensive use on multiple vehicles and is operational on the Atlas V and Vulcan vehicles.

Titan II GLV The Titan II GLV (Titan II Gemini Launch Vehicle) or Gemini-Titan II was an American expendable launch system derived from the Titan II missile, which was used to launch twelve Gemini missions for NASA between 1964 and 1966. Two uncrewed laun ...

carried the

Gemini spacecraft Project Gemini () was the second United States human spaceflight program to fly. Conducted after the first American crewed space program, Project Mercury, while the Apollo program was still in early development, Gemini was conceived in 1961 and ...

. The family was further developed into

Titan III Titan was a family of United States expendable rockets used between 1959 and 2005. The Titan I and Titan II were part of the US Air Force's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fleet until 1987. The space launch vehicle versions contribu ...

which utilized

solid rocket boosters A solid rocket booster (SRB) is a solid propellant motor used to provide thrust in spacecraft launches from initial launch through the first ascent. Many launch vehicles, including the Atlas V, SLS and Space Shuttle, have used SRBs to give launch ...

(SRBs), and in 1989, the heavy-lift

Titan IV Titan IV was a family of heavy-lift space launch vehicles developed by Martin Marietta and operated by the United States Air Force from 1989 to 2005. Launches were conducted from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and Vandenberg Air Forc ...

. Medium-lift versions of the Delta family include Delta II which utilized up to nine SRBs, and the

Delta IV Delta IV was a group of five expendable launch systems in the Delta rocket family. It flew 45 missions from 2002 to 2024. Originally designed by Boeing's Defense, Space and Security division for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) p ...

which could use optional SRBs or three first-stage cores as a

heavy Heavy may refer to: Measures * Heavy, a characterization of objects with substantial weight * Heavy, a wake turbulence category used by pilots and air traffic controllers to refer to aircraft with a maximum takeoff mass of 136,000 kgs or mo ...

variant.

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

introduced the

in 2010, designed to be a partially

reusable launch vehicle A reusable launch vehicle has parts that can be recovered and reflown, while carrying payloads from the surface to outer space. Rocket stages are the most common launch vehicle parts aimed for reuse. Smaller parts such as fairings, booster ...

. Falcon 9 underwent iterative upgrades and completed the first propulsive landing of an orbital rocket stage in 2015. SpaceX then began regularly reusing first stages. In 2022, Falcon 9 broke the record of 47 launches in one year held by

Soyuz-U Soyuz-U ( GRAU index: 11A511U) was a Soviet and later Russian expendable medium-lift launch vehicle designed by the TsSKB design bureau and constructed at the Progress factory in Samara, Russia. The ''U'' designation stands for ''unified' ...

. Falcon 9 launched 91 times in 2023 and 132 times in 2024.

Other

China's Long March family and the European Ariane family were introduced in the 1970s. Japan launched the

H-I The H–I (H–1) was a Japanese medium-lift launch vehicle, consisting of a licence-produced American first stage and set of booster rockets, and all-Japanese upper stages. The H in the name represented the use of liquid hydrogen fuel in the sec ...

in 1986 before developing the

H-II The H-II (H2) rocket was a Japanese satellite launch system, which flew seven times between 1994 and 1999, with five successes. It was developed by NASDA in order to give Japan a capability to launch larger satellites in the 1990s. It was the fi ...

and H3. India introduced the

PSLV The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is an expendable medium-lift launch vehicle designed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was developed to allow India to launch its Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite ...

in 1993. South Korea's

Nuri Nuri is a place in modern Sudan on the west side of the Nile River, Nile, near the Fourth Cataract. Nuri is situated about 15 km north of Sanam, Sudan, Sanam, and 10 km from Jebel Barkal. History Nuri is the second of three Napatan bur ...

History

Soviet Union and Russia

United States

Other

Rated launch vehicles

Operational

Under development

Retired

Notes

See also

References