What is the number of launches by year?

Question

How many orbital and beyond-Earth launches have been done every year?

There is a Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_spaceflight

But it doesn't contain enough data.

There is a green graph there, but it doesn't show the exact numbers. Plus 1967 has almost 150 flights, which probably isn't accurate. The answer to another question says it is 124 - Most busy times in space launches by decade?

As for individual articles - not all years mention the number of launches, for example 1984 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_in_spaceflight

Here's a similar question: Number of satellites launched per year?

Answer 1

note: for the purposes of launch statistics one should probably use the smaller of the two numbers below; the insertions of the "000" for debris items should not count.

Celestrak

offers a copy of at Satcat from which a tabulation of space objects can be gleaned:

• https://celestrak.org/satcat/search.php
• https://celestrak.org/satcat/satcat-format.php

The legacy text format (uses column numbers instead of the new CSV format) is as follows:

001-011  International Designator
    Launch Year (001-004)
    Launch of the Year (006-008)
    Piece of the Launch (009-011)

So for each year we should be able to count the number of unique "Launch of the year" values exist, and compare it to the highest value to see if they agree.

They do except in 1971 and 2014 where there's a difference of one more launch of the year than the highest launch number. This happened because someone inserted a value of 000 for launch of the year:

1971-000E    05310   D US UNKNOWN 1 DEB          US     1971-01-01  AFETR  1990-09-26   1436.7    1.2   35795   35763     N/A
2014-000A    40328     UNKNOWN LDS DEB           CIS    2014-01-01  PLMSC                710.6   70.5   32069    7930    0.0030

Here's a plot of the data, and the raw numbers below. Please note that it is not accurate for this year 2020 because the year isn't over yet.

inelegant script for sorting and plotting https://pastebin.com/GykNkE5Q

tabulated results (year 2020 is incomplete!)

1957 2 2 True
1958 8 8 True
1959 14 14 True
1960 19 19 True
1961 35 35 True
1962 72 72 True
1963 55 55 True
1964 87 87 True
1965 112 112 True
1966 118 118 True
1967 127 127 True
1968 119 119 True
1969 110 110 True
1970 114 114 True
1971 121 120 False
1972 106 106 True
1973 109 109 True
1974 106 106 True
1975 125 125 True
1976 128 128 True
1977 124 124 True
1978 124 124 True
1979 106 106 True
1980 105 105 True
1981 123 123 True
1982 121 121 True
1983 127 127 True
1984 129 129 True
1985 121 121 True
1986 103 103 True
1987 110 110 True
1988 116 116 True
1989 101 101 True
1990 116 116 True
1991 88 88 True
1992 95 95 True
1993 79 79 True
1994 89 89 True
1995 74 74 True
1996 73 73 True
1997 86 86 True
1998 77 77 True
1999 73 73 True
2000 82 82 True
2001 58 58 True
2002 62 62 True
2003 61 61 True
2004 53 53 True
2005 52 52 True
2006 63 63 True
2007 65 65 True
2008 67 67 True
2009 75 75 True
2010 70 70 True
2011 80 80 True
2012 75 75 True
2013 78 78 True
2014 91 90 False
2015 83 83 True
2016 83 83 True
2017 86 86 True
2018 112 112 True
2019 97 97 True
2020 87 87 True

United Nations

Ars Technica's SpaceX Starlink engineers take questions in Reddit AMA—here are highlights included a reader poll when I viewed it, screen shot below. It said:

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs monitors and logs objects, including satellites, launched each year.

Their home page is at https://www.unoosa.org/ and there is a page called Outer Space Objects Index

But this just looks like an attempt to make a "UN Satcat clone"

Answer 2

2020 has had 89 launch attempts with 81 successes and 8 failures. You can read the full timeline of launches attempts here.

Answer 3

I got the file named launchlog.txt from this place: Master Orbital Launch Log - JSR Launch Logs - Jonathan C. McDowell

As an alternative there is this file: GCAT: General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects - the O File: Orbital Launches

This is the data that I got:

YEAR	LAUNCHES	SUCCESS	FAILURE
2020	99	90	9
2019	102	97	5
2018	114	111	3
2017	91	84	7
2016	85	83	2
2015	87	82	5
2014	92	89	3
2013	81	77	4
2012	78	73	5
2011	84	78	6
2010	74	70	4
2009	78	73	5
2008	69	66	3
2007	68	63	5
2006	66	62	4
2005	56	52	4
2004	54	51	3
2003	63	61	2
2002	65	61	4
2001	59	57	2
2000	85	81	4
1999	78	70	8
1998	82	77	5
1997	89	83	6
1996	77	71	6
1995	80	72	8
1994	93	89	4
1993	83	79	4
1992	97	94	3
1991	91	87	4
1990	121	115	6
1989	102	100	2
1988	121	115	6
1987	114	108	6
1986	110	102	8
1985	125	120	5
1984	129	127	2
1983	129	127	2
1982	129	119	10
1981	126	120	6
1980	108	103	5
1979	110	105	5
1978	128	123	5
1977	130	123	7
1976	131	126	5
1975	132	125	7
1974	113	104	9
1973	116	109	7
1972	113	105	8
1971	133	117	16
1970	124	113	11
1969	125	106	19
1968	128	119	9
1967	139	124	15
1966	132	117	15
1965	124	109	15
1964	99	86	13
1963	69	52	17
1962	81	67	14
1961	50	34	16
1960	38	19	19
1959	23	13	10
1958	28	8	20
1957	3	2	1

6003 launches in total, 5545 successful and 458 failures

On average 93.5 launches per year, 86.5 of them successful

• Most launches: 1967 - 139
• Most successful launches: 1983 and 1984 with 127

and this is the script I used for generating the list:

cat launchlog.txt | grep -v "^ " > log
cat log | grep -E "^.{192} S    " > logs
cat log | grep -E "^.{192} F    " > logf

FOR /L %%A IN (1957,1,2020) DO (
  awk "/^%%A/ {c++} END {print %%A c}" log >> yeara.txt
)
cat yeara.txt | sed -e "s/\(....\)/\1 - /" > yra.txt

FOR /L %%A IN (1957,1,2020) DO (
  awk "/^%%A/ {c++} END {print %%A c}" logs >> years.txt
)
cat years.txt | sed -e "s/\(....\)/\1 - /" > yrs.txt

del /f yearf.txt
FOR /L %%A IN (1957,1,2020) DO (
  awk "/^%%A/ {c++} END {print %%A c}" logf >> yearf.txt
)
cat yearf.txt | sed -e "s/\(....\)/\1 - /" > yrf.txt

paste yra.txt yrs.txt yrf.txt | sed -e "s/\t....//g" > y.txt

(a, s and f means all, success, failure)