​Today at 06:43 (Romanian time) the Chinese Changzheng-3B launch vehicle successfully launched the Shiyan-10-02 experimental satellite into orbit from the Xichang Cosmodrome. It was China’s 64th orbital launch and the 458th launch of a rocket from the Chinese government’s Changzheng family of launch vehicles.

2022 was a remarkable year for China’s space program: the first time China had launched 64 rockets in one year, and the two reported failures involved private launch vehicles that were early in the journey: all 54 launched by the government ended successfully. And it follows a record set last year, when China ended the year with 52 successful orbital launches.

But in the first place in 2022, as in previous years, the USA stands with the number of 86 launches, of which 2 were unsuccessful (both by the Astra company). Of the 84 successful launches, 59 were by SpaceX, as you might expect. This is an incredible pace of SpaceX employees, who managed to launch a Falcon 9 rocket every 6 days on average.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see Starship debut this year, but we did see the new launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket, which will also return to the launch pad in 2023. But the most impressive and long-awaited orbital launch of 2022 was the SLS launch vehicle, the only superheavy launch vehicle capable of sending a crewed capsule into lunar orbit. In this way, the SLS overthrew the Falcon Heavy and became the most powerful rocket in operation.

In third place in 2022 is Russia, which launched 21 orbital rockets without a single failure.

In 4th place, at a long distance, is Europe (i.e. launched by the company Arianespace, i.e. the Ariane 5 and Vega rockets), with 5 successful launches and one unsuccessful one, the Vega-C rocket on December 21. Unfortunately, even though this was the first failure of the Vega-C variant, it was the third failure of the last 8 Vega launches, an unenviable record for a European light caliber launcher.

India has had 5 orbital launches this year, one of which ended in failure: the debut of the SSLV rocket, India’s lightweight launcher to complement the heavier PSLV and GSLV launchers.

Japan is currently in transition and the H2 launcher will be replaced by a new H3 variant that will debut next year. So in 2022, Japan conducted only one launch of the Epsilon small-caliber missile, which, unfortunately, ended in failure.

Rounding out the ranking are Iran and South Korea, each of which has carried out one successful launch: Iran’s Quased military rocket successfully launched the Noor-2 small satellite into orbit, and South Korea succeeded in its second attempt to launch the Nuri rocket, designed and developed entirely by its own forces (after , as last year the first flight of this rocket ended in failure).

In 2022, 8 countries had a total of 178 orbital launches and 7 failures, including Europe as a whole (counting only three launch vehicles, Ariane 5, Vega and Vega-C), a significant increase compared to last year, when another one was installed record. (in 2021 there were 135 successful launches, but 10 failed).

2023 promises to be at least as interesting from this point of view: while we won’t see a new SLS launch, the orbital debut of Starship is expected, as well as the Vulcan launch vehicle powered by Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines. At the same time, the pace of Falcon 9 launches is unlikely to slow down. Japan’s new H3 rocket, as well as Europe’s new Ariane 6 launch vehicle, are expected to debut next year (although Ariane 6’s debut could be pushed back to 2024).

The Electron rocket will begin using the Wallops launch pad on the east coast of the United States, and the RS1, Terran-1, or RFA One, light-caliber rockets, are also set to debut in 2023 (RFA One is a European rocket). , designed and developed by the German company Rocket Factory Ausburg). The first half of the year will also see the final launch of the Ariane 5 rocket, which will send Europe’s JUICE probe to the Jupiter system.

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