How many rockets reach orbit each year, and who launches them?

Steps

1. No API. Downloaded launch.tsv (75,992 rows, every launch since 1942, suborbital and orbital) and orgs.tsv, kept rows with LaunchCode O (orbital, 7,189), dropped 17 pad explosions and aborts, and counted 7,172 attempts by UTC year of Launch_Date, by launching state, by launch service type and by outcome. Cross-check: SATCAT's distinct launch designators per year equal GCAT's orbital and deep-space launches that reached space in 59 of 70 years (never off by more than 4), and SATCAT's 2025 count (315) equals the 315 that CelesTrak states for 2025.
2. An orbital launch attempt is a GCAT launch-list row whose LaunchCode starts with O and whose second letter is S (success) or F (failure). Rows with E (pad explosion) or A (pad abort) are left out because no launch occurred. A launch counts as a success when its score is 75 or higher: S with no digits is 100, F with no digits is 0, and digits give the percentage (S66 is a failure under the 0.75 rule). Country is the launching state of the Agency in the GCAT organisations table (the first listed organisation when the code names two), so a Rocket Lab launch from New Zealand counts as New Zealand. Provider type is the launch service type in the Group column: G is a government rocket; C, CO, CG and CX are commercial variants.

70 yearly rows from 7,172 attempts (7,189 orbital rows, 17 pad explosions and aborts removed). Unit: Number of orbital launch attempts per calendar year (UTC). Every derived figure on this page (changes, indexes, averages, counts) is computed from the published rows, and the table under each chart says how.

Checks

• Yearly totals add up to 7,172; country and provider-type columns add up to each year's attempts.
• SATCAT's launch designators equal GCAT's orbital and deep-space launches that reached space in 59 of 70 years and never differ by more than 4.
• CelesTrak states 315 successful launches in 2025; SATCAT has 315, GCAT 313 successes out of 324 attempts.
• The licence wording on GCAT's introduction page is read by the script, which stops if it changes. It also stops on any change in the launch list's columns or LaunchCode values.

Caveats

• GCAT is one researcher's catalog and is revised as evidence arrives. 2026 is partial: the last launch in the list is Oct 2, 2026.
• Orbital means the launch targeted a positive perigee. GCAT includes some Starship test flights where this is unclear, and they are counted.
• Success is the launch vehicle's result under GCAT's success fraction. A payload can fail after a successful launch, and a few launches carry intermediate scores (below 75 counts as a failure).
• Country is the state of the launch service organisation, not the payload owner or the launch site. Soviet and Russian launches are combined; Rocket Lab flights from New Zealand count as New Zealand.
• The government and commercial split follows GCAT's launch service code, a judgement about who ran and paid for each flight.

Releases and revisions

• GCAT Release 1.8.8 (2026 Sep 3), data update 2026 Oct 2; launch.tsv header stamp: 2026 Oct 2 2147:05. Last orbital launch in the list: 2026-10-02 (2026-228).
• GCAT updates its launch list as launches happen; re-run space_launches.py to refresh.