Rockets of the World, 76 Launch Vehicles Drawn to Scale

Key points

• The poster draws 76 rockets side by side at the same scale, sorted by height from Black Arrow (13 m) to Starship (120 m).
• 32 of the 76 rockets carry the US flag. The others come from the Soviet Union and Russia, China, Japan, India, Europe and smaller space programmes such as Brazil, Israel, Iran, North Korea and South Africa.
• Each label gives the years active, payload to low Earth orbit (LEO), successful and failed launches, and height.
• Soyuz has by far the most launches on the poster, with 1,414 successes and 30 failures.
• Starship is the tallest at 120 m and has the largest payload, 150,000 kg, ahead of Saturn V (110.6 m, 118,000 kg).

Rockets of the world in text

The poster is titled Rockets of the World and signed SKRABEK. A legend uses a yellow school bus as a size reference and explains each label: name, years active, payload in kg (LEO), success and failure counts, and height in metres. Rockets are grouped by height across five rows rather than by country, with a flag under each one. No date is printed; the latest years shown are 2024. Every rocket is listed below as printed, in poster order.

“Suborbital” means the rocket did not reach orbit, so no orbital payload is given. A “~” before a launch count is printed on the poster and marks an approximate figure.

How to read the poster

Because every rocket is drawn to the same scale, height is the easiest comparison. The smallest orbital rockets, such as Electron (17 m) and Pegasus (17.6 m), stand next to the school bus on the top row, while the four giants on the bottom right, SLS, N1, Saturn V and Starship, rise from 98 m to 120 m. Payload grows much faster than height: Electron’s 300 kg against Starship’s 150,000 kg is a factor of 500 for a rocket about seven times taller (our arithmetic). The success and failure counts show how much some designs flew: Soyuz, Kosmos 3M, Proton, Voskhod and Falcon 9 each have more than 280 successes on the poster.

The poster and its maker

The poster is sold as a print by Skrabek Print co., which describes it as featuring iconic rockets from early space pioneers to modern launch vehicles, including Saturn V, Falcon 9, Soyuz and Ariane 5, and also sells single-rocket posters for many of the vehicles shown [1]. Prints on sale may be a later edition than the version shown here.

Notes on this infographic

• Snapshot. Launch counts and “present” end dates were correct only around 2024 and are now out of date. For example, Ariane 5 flew its final mission on 5 July 2023 [8], and H3 is shown with 0 successes and 1 failure, but its first successful flight was in February 2024 [7].
• Terran 1. Shown with 1 success and 0 failures, but its only launch, on 23 March 2023, did not reach orbit [2]. It was then retired.
• N-1 (Japan). The label pairs a Japanese flag and Japanese N-I figures with the years 1969 to 1972, which belong to the Soviet N1. Japan’s N-I flew seven times between 1975 and 1982 [3].
• H-1. Printed as 1967 to 1975. The Japanese H-I was launched nine times between 1986 and 1992 [4].
• Long March 2F. Printed as starting in 1974. Its maiden flight was on 19 November 1999 [5].
• Bumper. Printed with the same years as the V2 (1944 to 1952). The Bumper programme launched between 1948 and 1950 [6].
• Other details. H3’s payload is given to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), not LEO, so it is not directly comparable with the rest. Terran 1 (35 m) is placed after Atlas-Agena (36.7 m), out of height order. “Tsklon-3” is the poster’s spelling of Tsyklon-3.

Sources

1. Skrabek Print co., Rockets of the World
2. Wikipedia, Terran 1
3. Wikipedia, N-I (rocket)
4. Wikipedia, H-I
5. Wikipedia, Long March 2F
6. Wikipedia, RTV-G-4 Bumper
7. Wikipedia, H3 (rocket)
8. Wikipedia, Ariane 5

Last reviewed 29 October 2026