2023 will be remembered for the very high number of orbital launches, higher than in any previous year and the result of an upward trend that has continued over the last five years. The main protagonists are SpaceX and China in general, with the latter seeing a surge in its activity. To get an idea of SpaceX’s activity alone, on November 22 a Falcon 9 rocket launched another batch of Starlink Internet satellites from Cape Canaveral, Florida. This was the 180th of 2023, surpassing the record of 179 successful orbital launches throughout 2022.
Launch activity has remained fairly stagnant globally since the end of the Cold War, when Russia and, to a lesser extent, the United States, scaled back their military space programs. For nearly 30 years, the record number of orbital launches in a calendar year has remained within 129, with this number established in 1984. In 2005, only 52 rockets managed to reach orbit.
To see the 1984 record crumble, we have to get to 2021, when 135 orbital launches were made, which then became 179 in 2022. As of November 30, 2023, we have already managed to do better, as 183 launches have already been achieved, with the prospect of reaching at least 200 by the end of the year. Of course, if you include the two test flights of SpaceX’s Starship (which were not actually intended to go into orbit) and the other tests, there have been at least 11 launch attempts this year that failed to achieve the goal.
SpaceX leads the way with 87 successful orbital launches. performed mainly with Falcon 9 and to a lesser extent Falcon Heavy. About two-thirds of Elon Musk’s company’s launches have carried Starlink satellites into space. China follows with the launch of 54 orbital missions this year: 53 successes and one failure. Russia closes in third place with 15 orbital launches.
SpaceX aims to fly 12 times a month next year, which would give the company 144 launches over the course of the year, so it will easily exceed 200 launches in 2024 as well. In fact, the numbers could grow further both among the above realities and due to the entry of other players.
SpaceX will perform further tests of the Starship rocket, while in parallel it will continue with the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy activities. China plans to launch large “megaconstellations” of telecommunications and broadband satellites in the coming years, so it should ramp up its activity
It should not be forgotten that the massive deployment of Amazon’s Kuiper Internet satellites will begin, which will help inflate the global numbers even more. Last month, Bezos’ company put its first two test satellites into orbit, but there are contracts in place for another 76 commercial launches: 46 with United Launch Alliance for Vulcan and Atlas V missions, 18 with Arianespace for Ariane 6 rockets, another 12 New Glenn missions booked with Blue Origin, as well as some optional contracts for a total of an additional 15 launches.
All this leads us to raise a question, namely the amount of material that is put into orbit and that could inevitably one day become pollution. BryceTech, an analytics and research firm focused on the space industry, reported that all global launches carried more than 1,000 tons of cargo material into orbit from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 2023 alone. More than 80% of this amount was launched by SpaceX, mainly to populate the Starlink network with more satellites. China is in second place but definitely below SpaceX, with its 80 tons of orbital material, but it’s pretty sure things could get worse in the coming years.
