Seven decades, 7,344 orbital launches — and nearly a third of them came after 2015

Asked:

“Every orbital launch from 1957 to today — for each one list the year, the launch site, the operating bloc and whether the site is still active.”

GCAT's strict confirmed-orbital record (successful launches plus confirmed failed orbital attempts) holds 7,344 launches from Sputnik on 4 October 1957 through 2026-09-03 — all of them listed below — across 70 calendar years, 47 normalized launch sites and 21 operating blocs. Detailed fields are single-sourced to Jonathan McDowell's GCAT, corroborated year-by-year by the Orbital Radar archive; marginal orbital-energy tests (GCAT's U list) are excluded, which is why Orbital Radar's broader total reads 7,388. 2026 is a partial year.

The launch map, played year by year

1957

One bubble per site per year, area scaled to launches that year.site still active todaysite now closed. Hover a bubble for detail; the map plays once, then use the scrubber.

Annual cadence: the post-2020 surge

Launch attempts per year, split by whether the launch site is still active as of 2026-09-04.from sites still activefrom sites now closed

The record year is 2025 with 323 launches; 2026 already counts 208 by 3 September — the 1960s Cold War peak was 139 in 1967. orbitalradar.com

Plesetsk is the busiest site in history with 1,684 launches, ahead of Baykonur (1,553), Canaveral (1,104) and Vandenberg (922) — all four still active. planet4589.org

Only 21 of the 7,344 launches left from the 4 sites now closed; 43 of the 47 sites remain active, so nearly every launch pad in the record could still fire today. planet4589.org

USSR (2,444) and USA (2,440) are near-tied all-time, but China (791), Russia (896) and newcomers like New Zealand (81) drive the modern totals. planet4589.org

Every launch, 1957–2026

Year	Launch site	Operating bloc	Still active	Launch ID	UTC date	Mission	Operator	Source

Method: 7,344 rows, one per confirmed orbital launch or failed orbital attempt (GCAT O and F lists), 1957-10-04 to 2026-09-03, single-sourced to Jonathan McDowell's GCAT release of 2026-09-03 with Orbital Radar as a GCAT-derived corroborating archive by year; GCAT's U list of marginal orbital-energy tests is excluded (Orbital Radar's broader scope gives 7,388). Operating bloc is the state or intergovernmental body of the launch agency at launch time, falling back to the site's responsible state — not the payload owner. "Still active" is site-level status as of 2026-09-04 over normalized site phases (43 of 47 sites active). Counts are attempts; coordinates are decimal degrees; 2026 is a partial year.

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