According to a report by Bryce Tech, the largest number of orbital launches in history occurred last year, with 221 orbital launches worldwide, with a total of 2,938 vehicles. While the US has achieved a personal best and China is far behind, Europe is showing signs of losing the race.

• BryceTech is an analytics and engineering firm that works with science and technology clients, according to its own description on its official page. The company provides support for government programs and business consulting.

The United States is resolutely distancing itself from the rest of its competitors in the space race. As of 2023, the Americans had 114 launches, almost twice as many as the next largest: China, with 67 launches.

Europe is showing signs of losing ground, with only 3 launches in all of last year, the same as Japan and North Korea, and far behind Russia (19) and India (7).

Compared to the main competitors in the space race, Europe launched 38 times less than the US and 22 times less than China.

And last year’s situation is not exceptional. According to BryceTech, there were 6 launches in Europe, 87 in the US and 64 in China in 2022.

Why is Europe so behind?

In 2021, the head of the European Space Agency said that Europe must strengthen its space program or it will fall behind other countries. “European astronauts should be on European rockets,” said Josef Aschbacher, quoted by DW.

“Europe must expand in order not to be left out of the race and not to be left behind,” said the head of the ESA. BryceTech’s data confirms fears expressed by a European official.

Similarly, a December 2022 LeMonde editorial noted that “faced with a lack of launch facilities and cumbersome processes, Europe’s bid to stay in the space race with the US and China is being severely tested.”

The French newspaper recalled that in 1961, realizing the strategic importance of space, French President Charles de Gaulle proposed that his country become the third space power after Russia and the United States. The ambition led to the successful launch of the Ariane rocket program ten years later, guaranteeing European sovereignty by securing its own access to space.

This success half a century ago and Europe’s autonomy is now threatened by the lack of launchers. Europe’s desire to stay competitive with the Americans and the Chinese was also influenced by how space exploration developed. If for a long time it was a domain reserved for large national agencies, then Elon Musk shook up the operating model.

Thanks to SpaceX and its Falcon rockets, the American billionaire has been setting the rules for the past decade. Everything is faster, cheaper, and its missiles are reusable. Later, billionaire Jeff Bezos, who wants to lay the foundations of space tourism, crept into the race to conquer space with his flights.

This flexibility contrasts with cumbersome European processes, often with numerous delays and additional costs. Faced with SpaceX’s onslaught, the European Space Agency (ESA) responded by launching the Ariane-6 and Vega-C programs in December 2014. But it did so without changing its organizational structure and, above all, by maintaining the rule of “geographical distribution”, a practice that consists in redistributing to each member country an industrial task equivalent to its financial contribution.

Thanks to this operating model, a Member State can thus ensure the participation of one of its companies in a project, even if it is not the most efficient in its field.

h2. China and the US are fighting to be the first to reach the moon again

As Europe tries to rebuild its aerospace industry, China has set its sights on a space race with the United States. The Global Times, a Chinese tabloid run by the Chinese Communist Party, announced on February 26, 2024 that Beijing will conduct 100 orbital launches this year, a record for China.

China plans to send astronauts to the moon for scientific research by 2030. This approach is a direct response to the ambitions of the United States, which wants to return this decade with astronauts to the moon through the Artemis program.

12 people walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972. All of them were sent to US missions. Missions were abandoned in favor of space shuttle flights and international space stations.

Russia also has ambitions to set foot on the moon, but Moscow’s plans lag behind those of the US and China. Russia plans to send astronauts to the moon next decade for the first time in its history and plans to build a base on the moon from 2031, according to the Russian agency responsible for manned spaceflight. Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space on April 12, 1961, but Soviet cosmonauts never landed on the moon.

Sources: DW, Global Times, Le Monde, Reuters, TASS