WASHINGTON — Orbital launch activity set another annual record in 2025, although future growth may depend on factors different from those that fueled the recent surge.
There were 324 orbital launch attempts worldwide in 2025, according to a SpaceNews analysis of open-source data. The total excludes suborbital launches, such as five test flights of SpaceX’s Starship that did not reach orbit by design, as well as three launches of the HASTE variant of Rocket Lab’s Electron.
The total represents a 25% increase from the previous record of 259 orbital launch attempts in 2024, which itself marked a 17% increase from the 221 launches recorded in 2023.
Growth in global launch activity over the past several years has been driven primarily by SpaceX and Chinese launch providers. In 2020, when there were 107 orbital launch attempts worldwide, SpaceX conducted 26 Falcon 9 launches, while Chinese operators carried out 35 launches.
In 2025, SpaceX flew 165 Falcon 9 missions, more than the rest of the world combined. China conducted 92 orbital launches, spread across roughly two dozen vehicle families operated by state-owned enterprises and private startups.
Overall, the United States conducted 193 orbital launch attempts in 2025, which includes Electron launches from New Zealand by Rocket Lab, a U.S.-headquartered company. Together, the United States and China accounted for 88% of all orbital launches worldwide in 2025.
Chinese launch activity is expected to grow further in 2026 as additional new vehicles make their debut and others increase flight rates, particularly to support deployment of the Guowang and Qianfan satellite constellations. Continued growth in Falcon 9 launches, however, is less certain.
Speaking at a conference in July, Stephanie Bednarek, SpaceX’s vice president of commercial sales, said 2025 and 2026 are likely to mark the peak of Falcon launch activity. After that, she said, SpaceX plans to transition a growing share of missions to Starship. That shift would include Starlink launches, currently the single largest customer for Falcon 9, as SpaceX develops a larger generation of Starlink satellites optimized for Starship.
SpaceX has not publicly released projections for Falcon 9 launches in 2026. In late 2024, the company set a target of 175 to 180 launches in 2025, later revising that goal downward to 165.
If Falcon launch rates level off or decline in 2026, other vehicles may help offset the slowdown. SpaceX’s Starship is expected to begin orbital launches in 2026 after prolonged delays, supporting Starlink deployment and in-orbit refueling demonstrations for the Artemis lunar lander version of the vehicle.
Other launch vehicles, including Arianespace’s Ariane 6, Blue Origin’s New Glenn and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan, are expected to increase flight rates in 2026. Together, however, those three vehicles accounted for only seven launches in 2025.
Several additional rockets are projected to attempt their first orbital launches in 2026, ranging from Rocket Lab’s Neutron to Rocket Factory Augsburg’s RFA One and several Chinese vehicles. The success rate of inaugural flights is mixed, though, and historically it has taken several years for new launch systems to ramp up flight rates even after reaching orbit.