The American comeback
The United States took the lead back in 2022 with 78 launches to China's 64, ending a run of four years in which China launched the most. The world flew 186 times, 40 more than in 2021, and SpaceX flew 61 of them, 33% of the total and 30 more than the year before. It was also the year the war in Ukraine reached the launch pad. Russia flew 21 launches, and the war ended its Soyuz launches from a European spaceport, cost it commercial customers and ended a Mars partnership.
2,542 payloads were carried into orbit. 7 launches failed. 0 Starship test flights are included in the total.
Launches by month
By country
The biggest change from 2021 was the United States, up 33 to 78 launches.
By launch site
By rocket
Launches in every year since 1957.
What the war changed
Wikipedia's account of 2022 says the Soyuz program at Europe's spaceport in French Guiana was suspended and that six Soyuz launches planned for OneWeb were cancelled. A OneWeb launch scheduled for March 4 was among the casualties. France, the country GCAT credits for launches from Kourou, fell from 15 launches in 2021 to 5 in 2022. OneWeb moved to other rockets: India's LVM3 flew its satellites on October 22, 2022 and a Falcon 9 on December 8, 2022. The OneWeb page has the numbers. The ExoMars rover, which ESA and Roscosmos had already delayed to 2022, lost its Russian launch.
The landmark flights
Artemis I. NASA's Space Launch System flew for the first time on November 16, 2022, and the Orion capsule splashed down on December 11, 2022. It carried a set of small satellites, and their results were mixed. Our mission ledgers list 9 Moon and Mars missions that launched in 2022: 4 success, 3 partial, 2 failure. The Moon mission success rate page shows how that compares with other years.
Falcon Heavy returns. The rocket hadn't flown since 2019. It carried the military USSF-44 mission on November 1, 2022. SpaceX's other 60 launches were Falcon 9s.
Tiangong takes its shape. China launched the Wentian laboratory module on July 24, 2022 and the Mengtian module on October 31, 2022, completing the station's basic structure.
South Korea reaches orbit. Nuri flew successfully on June 21, 2022, and Wikipedia counts South Korea as the seventh country able to put a payload of a tonne or more into orbit. Our South Korea page counts what the country has in orbit. South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter launched separately, on August 4, 2022.
Seven failures
Seven launches failed, the fewest since 2018, and 96% of the year's launches succeeded. Astra's Rocket 3.3 failed on February 10 and June 12. A Hyperbola-1 failed on May 13. Two debuts failed: India's SSLV on August 7 and China's Zhuque-2 on December 14. Japan's Epsilon failed on October 12, and Europe's Vega C, five months after its own first flight, failed on December 21.
Rockets and launch sites
Falcon 9 flew 60 of the 186 launches (32%), ahead of Chang Zheng 2D with 15 and Chang Zheng 4C with 9. By site, Cape Canaveral had 36, Jiuquan 25, Kennedy Space Center 19 and Xichang 16. Ten countries launched at least once in all, counting the launching country the way GCAT does. The launches put 2,542 satellites into orbit, an average of 14 per launch. 1,722 of them, 68%, were Starlink satellites. The rest, 820, came from every other operator in the world put together.
New rockets and shifting shares
GCAT logs nine rocket types flying for the first time in 2022: Atlas V 511 (January 21), Chang Zheng 6A (March 29), Angara-1.2 (April 29), Vega C (July 13), Lijian-1 (July 27), SSLV (August 7), SLS Block 1 (November 16), Jielong-3 (December 9), Zhuque-2 (December 14). Two of them failed on that first flight. Some are new versions of a rocket that already existed, which GCAT lists under a new name. Against 2021, the biggest gain was the United States, up 33 to 78, and the biggest fall was France, down 10 to 5.
The shape of the year
January was the quietest full month with 8 launches and October the busiest with 23. By quarter the counts run 33, 42, 50 and 61, so 33% of the year's launches came in the final three months.
Where the year ranks
Among the 70 years in the log, 2022 ranks 5th for the number of launches. No earlier year in the log had as many. The log holds 7,433 launches in all, an average of 106 a year, so 2022 was at 1.8 times the long-run average.
The second half
The busiest month was October with 23 launches, and the last six months averaged 18 a month against 12 in the first six. Starlink flew 34 launches carrying 1,722 satellites. Wikipedia's list also totals 186 for 2022 but gives the United States 87, which is our 78 plus the 9 Electron launches from New Zealand. On to 2023.