This section may include some projects with more hype than hope. Small startups continue to work on new innovative launchers: the New Line and Nebula from China, the RFA from Germany (trying to catch up to its rival the Spectrum), the Miura from Spain, the Prime from Britain, the Eris from Australia, the Hapith from Taiwan, and the Blue Whale from South Korea. (Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey also hope to join the orbital club, but have not yet advanced far enough to have separate articles here.) More ambitiously, Stoke Space from the state of Washington is going for full reusability and medium capacity with their Nova.

The major aerospace giants don’t appear here anymore, now that the Vulcan, the Starship, and the New Glenn have all gone to orbit. The most mainstream and proven outfit to appear here is Rocket Lab with their Neutron, which might give SpaceX some genuine competition.

Many of these proposed rockets are as yet only a half-developed engine. At any given time, you will usually find only a few near the front of the list that have a mostly built rocket ready to test any time soon.