Looking at the most dominant rocket families of 2022, Elon dominated the launch space with 61 Falcon 9 launches.
China followed closely behind with 53 launches of their Long March family of rockets.
Russia’s R-7 launched 19 times.
Rocket Lab from New Zealand managed to launch their small-sat launcher Electron 9 times.
Elon’s goal for 2022 was 60 Launches. SpaceX achieved 61.
For 2023 he moved the stretch goal to 100. This means one rocket to space every 3,6 days.
How do the competitors stack up at halftime of 2023?
- SpaceX has so far executed 40 (66% of 2022) launches, which puts it on a path to 80 launches this year. 100 launches might be too far away.
- Long March launched 19 times (36% of 2022).
- The R-7 only 7 times (37% of 2022).
- Rocket Lab managed to increase their rate to 5, which is 56% compared to 2022. Rocket Lab should be able to significantly increase their launch rate. After all, they now operate three launch pads. Peter Beck (CEO) remarked at the end of last year that their launch cadence is market driven. Which means they are having trouble finding enough customers for their current capacity.
Data Sources:
Jonathan C. McDowell: Launch List by Family
Wikipedia: List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches (2010–2019)
Wikipedia: List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches
Wikipedia: List of Long March launches (2010–2019)
Wikipedia: List of Long March launches (2020–2029)
Wikipedia: List of R-7 launches (2010–2014)
Wikipedia: List of R-7 launches (2015–2019)
Wikipedia: List of R-7 launches (2020–2024)
Wikipedia: List of Electron launches
Wikipedia: Comparison of orbital launcher families