It took a long time, but the records for launch attempts and success, which dated back to 1967 and 1976 respectively, were finally broken.
You will have noticed if you have read our 2021 astronautics retrospective, the year which has just passed was one of all records. And this assertion also applies to rocket takeoffs.
2021: the greatest number of attempts and successes
The previous records were starting to date seriously. That relating to launch attempts dates back to 1967: 139 attempts, including 122 successes. The greatest number of successful orbital launches in a year was reached in 1976, with 125 successes out of 131 attempts.
The year 2021 is essential in both tables. In the past few months, governments and commercial operators have made 144 attempts, of which 133 were successful.
All this data comes from Space Launch Report
. Note that they do not include the recent Iran-orchestrated launch with Simorgh.
China ahead of Russia and the United States
As shown in the graph below, prior to the 2020s the overwhelming majority of rocket launches were the work of two countries, Russia and the United States. Over the past two decades, the share of these two states (especially Russia) has dropped drastically. Conversely, that of other countries, particularly India and China, has continued to grow.
In 2021, the Chinese government and some private operators made 56 attempts, of which 53 were successful. Concretely, it is China which operated the most launches in 2021. They fell under various fields, from military space to communication satellites through lunar exploration.
Across the Pacific, the United States carried out 51 orbital launches in 2021, 48 of which were successful. The majority of those launches fall on SpaceX’s Falcon 9s. To establish its Starlink constellation, the company carried out 31 launches in 2021 without experiencing any failure. Some launches made by companies with less media coverage than SpaceX include Rocket Lab, which made six in 2021.
New records in 2022?
In principle, governments and private companies do not consider
to downsize in 2022, quite the contrary. The rise of industry
commercial space and the thousands of Starlink satellites waiting to be put into orbit could set a new record in 2022, with possibly more than 150 attempts in the next 12 months.
Source: ArsTechnica
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