A record year, by a mile
The world made 329 orbital launch attempts in 2025. The Space Race peak was 139 in 1967, a record that stood until 2021.
Just for fun · 1957–2026
Every launch, on one globe.
I love rockets. Few things beat watching a Falcon 9 booster come home and stick its landing, or an Electron climbing off the coast of New Zealand. This one is just for fun: every orbital launch attempt in history, 7,410 of them from Sputnik in Oct 1957 to Oct 2026, each lifting off its real launch site. Press play and watch the Space Race, the quiet years, and the launch boom we're living through right now.
- Launches shown
- 0
- This year
- 0
- ✕Failure
- Partial
- Upcoming
While it plays, the globe turns toward wherever rockets are launching. Drag it to look around yourself, which pauses following; Follow launches or Reset view hands control back. Hover or tap a launch site for its count by provider. Choose providers above, or a year bar to jump there. Space plays or pauses. Busy years play slower, and when it gets crowded only some launches get an animated rocket (SpaceX and Rocket Lab always do). Flight paths are drawn for effect, not real trajectories.
Coming up
Upcoming launches.
Every orbital launch on the schedule worldwide for the next 60 days, in Eastern time, in the same provider colors as the globe. Launch dates slip all the time, so each one is labeled with its status.
- Goconfirmed
- TBCto be confirmed
- TBDnot set yet
- Tue, Oct 206:30 AM ETBandwagon 5 (Dedicated Mid-Inclination Rideshare)Falcon 9 · SpaceX · Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USAWindow 6:30 AM to 7:30 AM ETWatch live:SpaceX (official)SPACE AFFAIRSSpaceflight NowGo
- Tue, Oct 207:09 PM ETStarlink Group 15-15Falcon 9 · SpaceX · Space Launch Complex 4E, Vandenberg SFB, CA, USAWindow 6:14 PM to 10:14 PM ETWatch live:SpaceX (official)SPACE AFFAIRSGo
- Tue, Oct 20Around 11 PM ETUnknown PayloadCeres-1S · China commercial · Rizhao offshore launch location, Haiyang Oriental SpaceportGo
- Wed, Oct 213:00 AM ETWe're Not Hawking Around (3x HawkEye 360)Electron · Rocket Lab · Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1A, Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, Mahia Peninsula, New ZealandWindow 3:00 AM to 4:45 AM ETProvider stream page:Rocket Lab livestream pageGo
- Wed, Oct 21Around 10 PM ETUnknown PayloadLong March 8A · CASC · Commercial LC-1, Wenchang Space Launch Site, People's Republic of ChinaGo
- Fri, Oct 23Around 6 AM ETUnknown PayloadLong March 6A · CASC · Launch Complex 9A, Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of ChinaGo
- Fri, Oct 23Around 3 PM ETUnknown PayloadLong March 4B · CASC · Launch Area 94 (SLS-2 / 603), Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of ChinaGo
- Sat, Oct 241:29 AM ETStarlink Group 15-16Falcon 9 · SpaceX · Space Launch Complex 4E, Vandenberg SFB, CA, USAWindow 1:29 AM to 5:29 AM ETWatch live:SpaceX (official)Go
- Wed, Oct 2812:31 AM ETStarlink Group 15-18Falcon 9 · SpaceX · Space Launch Complex 4E, Vandenberg SFB, CA, USAWindow 12:31 AM to 4:31 AM ETWatch live:SpaceX (official)Go
- Wed, Oct 28Time TBDAmazon Leo (LV-01)Vulcan VC6L · ULA · Space Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USAProvider stream page:ULA missions pageULA on YouTubeTBD
- Oct 2026Date TBDFlight 2Long March 12A · CASC · Long March 12 series Pad, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of ChinaTBD
- Oct 2026Date TBDAayulSAT-1A & othersSSLV · India · Satish Dhawan Space Centre First Launch Pad, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, IndiaProvider stream page:ISRO on YouTubeTBD
- Oct 2026Date TBDIRNSS-1L (NVS-03)GSLV Mk II · India · Satish Dhawan Space Centre Second Launch Pad, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, IndiaProvider stream page:ISRO on YouTubeTBD
- Sun, Nov 11:11 AM ETStarlink Group 15-21Falcon 9 · SpaceX · Space Launch Complex 4E, Vandenberg SFB, CA, USAWindow 1:11 AM to 4:11 AM ETWatch live:SpaceX (official)Go
- Tue, Nov 3Time TBDThe Sea God Surveys (iQPS Launch 9)Electron · Rocket Lab · Pad TBD, Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, Mahia Peninsula, New ZealandProvider stream page:Rocket Lab livestream pageTBD
- Mon, Nov 9Time TBDThe Mountain God Rises (iQPS Launch 10)Electron · Rocket Lab · Pad TBD, Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, Mahia Peninsula, New ZealandProvider stream page:Rocket Lab livestream pageTBD
- Sun, Nov 22Time TBDAmazon Leo (LE-04)Ariane 64 · Europe · Ariane Launch Area 4, Guiana Space Centre, French GuianaProvider stream page:Arianespace on YouTubeTBD
- Tue, Nov 2412:03 AM ETProgress MS-36 (97P)Soyuz 2.1b · USSR & Russia · 31/6, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of KazakhstanInstantaneous windowTBC
- Nov 2026Date TBDGaganyaan-1LVM-3 (GSLV Mk III) · India · Satish Dhawan Space Centre Second Launch Pad, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, IndiaProvider stream page:ISRO on YouTubeTBD
- Nov 2026Date TBDTDS-01PSLV-XL · India · Satish Dhawan Space Centre First Launch Pad, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, IndiaProvider stream page:ISRO on YouTubeTBD
- Nov 2026Date TBDCygnus CRS-2 NG-25Falcon 9 · SpaceX · Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USAProvider stream page:SpaceX launches pageSpaceX on YouTubeTBD
Schedule and webcast links: The Space Devs, Launch Library 2, as of Oct 19, 2026, 8:41 PM ET. "Provider stream page" links go to the launch company's own livestream or video page when no webcast is listed yet. Dates and times change often; check the provider before you plan around one.
From the data
We're living in the busiest era of spaceflight.
A few things that jumped out at me. Every number here is counted from the launches on this page.
SpaceX flies most of them
SpaceX flew 170 of 2025's launches (52%), more than everyone else combined (159). Back in 2017 it was 18 launches. Its first 100 took 14.4 years, and its latest 100 took 236 days.
The Cold War cadence
The Soviet Union flew 108 launches in 1982, its busiest year, mostly from Plesetsk and Baikonur. Russia flew 17 in 2025. All told, the USSR and Russia account for 46% of every orbital launch ever.
China is number two, and Rocket Lab punches up
China flew 92 times in 2025 (73 by CASC's Long March rockets, 19 by commercial companies). Rocket Lab's small Electron flew 18 times, more than all of Russia (17).
1,506 of all 7,410 orbital launch attempts, about one in five, happened from 2020 on.
The launch sites
43 sites, from Baikonur to Mahia.
Pads within about 30 km of each other are grouped, so Baikonur's dozens of pads are one marker, and so are Cape Canaveral and Kennedy.
| Site | Main providers | Launches | First | Latest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plesetsk, Russia | USSR & Russia | 1,688 | Mar 1966 | Sep 2026 |
| Baikonur, Kazakhstan | USSR & Russia | 1,558 | Oct 1957 | Sep 2026 |
| Cape Canaveral & Kennedy, Florida | SpaceX, NASA, U.S. heritage | 1,385 | Dec 1957 | Oct 2026 |
| Vandenberg, California | U.S. heritage, SpaceX, NASA | 914 | Feb 1959 | Oct 2026 |
| Kourou, French Guiana | Europe | 336 | Mar 1970 | Sep 2026 |
| Jiuquan, China | CASC, China commercial | 299 | Apr 1970 | Oct 2026 |
| Xichang, China | CASC, China commercial | 242 | Jan 1984 | Jul 2026 |
| Taiyuan, China | CASC, China commercial | 162 | Sep 1988 | Sep 2026 |
| Sriharikota, India | India, Other | 103 | Aug 1979 | Sep 2026 |
| Kapustin Yar, Russia | USSR & Russia | 99 | Oct 1961 | Jan 1987 |
| Tanegashima, Japan | Japan | 99 | Sep 1975 | Aug 2026 |
| Mahia, New Zealand | Rocket Lab | 84 | May 2017 | Sep 2026 |
| Wenchang, China | CASC | 75 | Jun 2016 | Oct 2026 |
| Wallops, Virginia | Northrop Grumman, NASA, Rocket Lab | 59 | Dec 1960 | Jun 2026 |
| Uchinoura, Japan | Japan | 43 | Sep 1966 | Oct 2022 |
| Air launches off California | Northrop Grumman, U.S. heritage, Other | 38 | Jul 1958 | Jul 2022 |
| Sea Launch, Pacific Ocean | USSR & Russia | 36 | Mar 1999 | May 2014 |
| Vostochny, Russia | USSR & Russia | 26 | Mar 1997 | Dec 2025 |
| Yellow Sea platforms, China | CASC, China commercial | 26 | Jun 2019 | Aug 2026 |
| Semnan, Iran | Iran | 15 | Aug 2008 | Sep 2025 |
| Starbase, Texas | SpaceX | 14 | Apr 2023 | Sep 2026 |
| Palmachim, Israel | Other | 13 | Sep 1988 | Sep 2025 |
| Kwajalein, Marshall Islands | Northrop Grumman, SpaceX | 10 | Oct 2000 | Jul 2026 |
| Yasny, Russia | USSR & Russia | 10 | Jul 2006 | Mar 2015 |
| San Marco, Kenya | U.S. heritage | 9 | Apr 1967 | Mar 1988 |
| Kodiak, Alaska | Other, Northrop Grumman, U.S. heritage | 9 | Sep 2001 | Jan 2023 |
| Naro, South Korea | Other | 8 | Aug 2009 | Oct 2026 |
| Air launches off Florida | Northrop Grumman | 7 | Feb 1993 | Oct 2019 |
| Sohae, North Korea | North Korea | 7 | Apr 2012 | May 2024 |
| Woomera, Australia | Europe, U.S. heritage | 6 | Nov 1967 | Oct 1971 |
| Shahroud, Iran | Iran | 6 | Apr 2020 | Sep 2024 |
| Hammaguir, Algeria | Europe | 4 | Nov 1965 | Feb 1967 |
| Alcântara, Brazil | Other | 3 | Nov 1997 | Dec 2025 |
| Barents Sea (submarine) | USSR & Russia | 3 | Jul 1998 | May 2006 |
| Kii, Japan | Other | 3 | Mar 2024 | Mar 2026 |
| Tonghae, North Korea | North Korea | 2 | Aug 1998 | Apr 2009 |
| Andøya, Norway | Europe | 2 | Mar 2025 | Sep 2026 |
| East China Sea | China commercial | 2 | Jul 2026 | Sep 2026 |
| Air launch off the Canary Islands | Northrop Grumman | 1 | Apr 1997 | Apr 1997 |
| Kauai, Hawaii | U.S. heritage | 1 | Nov 2015 | Nov 2015 |
| Air launch off Cornwall, UK | Other | 1 | Jan 2023 | Jan 2023 |
| Jeju, South Korea | Other | 1 | Dec 2023 | Dec 2023 |
| Bowen, Australia | Other | 1 | Jul 2025 | Jul 2025 |
Who flies
Launches by provider.
| Provider | Launches | Failures | In 2025 | First |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USSR & Russia | 3,420 | 164 | 17 | Oct 1957 |
| U.S. heritage | 877 | 99 | 0 | Dec 1957 |
| SpaceX | 728 | 8 | 170 | Mar 2006 |
| CASC | 693 | 17 | 73 | Apr 1970 |
| NASA | 529 | 27 | 0 | Mar 1960 |
| Europe | 347 | 20 | 8 | Nov 1965 |
| ULA | 191 | 0 | 6 | Aug 1989 |
| Japan | 142 | 12 | 4 | Sep 1966 |
| China commercial | 113 | 19 | 19 | Sep 2002 |
| India | 102 | 11 | 5 | Aug 1979 |
| Northrop Grumman | 94 | 6 | 1 | Apr 1990 |
| Rocket Lab | 89 | 4 | 18 | May 2017 |
| Iran | 21 | 10 | 1 | Aug 2008 |
| North Korea | 9 | 6 | 0 | Aug 1998 |
| Firefly | 7 | 2 | 1 | Sep 2021 |
| Blue Origin | 3 | 0 | 2 | Jan 2025 |
| Other | 45 | 21 | 4 | Sep 1988 |
Data and method
Where the numbers come from.
- Launches
- Jonathan McDowell's General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (GCAT) launch list, as of Oct 2026. I kept every launch GCAT codes as an orbital or deep-space attempt, successful or not, plus SpaceX's Starship flight tests. That's 7,410 launches from Oct 1957 to Oct 2026.
- Providers
- Grouped by rocket. "NASA" is Saturn, the Space Shuttle, and SLS, plus every other launch GCAT lists with NASA (or one of its centers, such as Goddard or Lewis) as the launch agency, like NASA's Thor-Delta, Atlas-Centaur, and Scout flights: 529 in all. NASA missions flown on commercial rockets, such as crew and cargo flights on Falcon 9 or probes on Atlas V, count under the rocket's provider. "U.S. heritage" is the other Atlas, Thor/Delta, Titan, and Scout launches (military, commercial, and other non-NASA flights) before United Launch Alliance formed in late 2006. After that, Atlas V, Delta II, Delta IV, and Vulcan count as ULA. "USSR & Russia" includes Ukrainian-built Zenit, Tsiklon, and Dnepr, plus Sea Launch. Soyuz launches from Kourou count as Europe (Arianespace). CASC includes its Smart Dragon (Jielong) subsidiary. "China commercial" is CASIC's Kuaizhou and the private companies. "Other" covers Israel, South Korea, Brazil, and smaller U.S., Japanese, Indian, Australian, and European startups.
- Starship
- Starship flights are flight tests on suborbital or near-orbital paths, not full orbital launches. They count toward SpaceX's total here (14 flights), and the globe labels each one as a test.
- Left out
- Suborbital and atmospheric flights (sounding rockets, missile tests, hop tests such as Grasshopper and early Starship prototypes, and Rocket Lab's suborbital HASTE flights, except one that GCAT codes as orbital), plus 27 rockets that exploded on the pad before launch, such as Amos-6 in 2016, and 6 countdowns where the engines lit and then shut down on the pad (five Space Shuttle aborts and Gemini 6).
- Outcomes
- GCAT's call on whether each flight reached its planned orbit or trajectory. Partial failures (the wrong orbit, or some payloads lost) are marked separately.
- Booster landings
- From Wikipedia's lists of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, matched to GCAT by launch time (709 Falcon flights, all matched). For Falcon Heavy, Wikipedia lists the center core only.
- Sites and map
- Pad and site coordinates come from GCAT's site tables. Air launches (such as Pegasus) start where the rocket was dropped. The land dots come from Natural Earth's 1:110m land outlines. Flight directions are rough, based on each site's usual launch corridor, and are for effect only.
- Upcoming
- The Space Devs' Launch Library 2 API, pulled when the site is built and refreshed in your browser when the copy is more than a few hours old. Launches with only a target month are listed without a day.
Data: GCAT (Jonathan McDowell, CC BY), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), Natural Earth (public domain), The Space Devs. I built it with AI for fun, with reproducible Python build scripts. The globe is vanilla JS on a canvas, with no mapping library.