From a two-power race to a many-handed launch pad: 55 years of orbital attempts

The question asked: every orbital launch from 1957 to today — year, launch site, operating bloc, and whether that site record is still active. This partial extract of Jonathan McDowell’s GCAT catalog (updated 2026-08-29/30) holds the first 5,000 orbital launch attempts, including failures, from Sputnik on 4 Oct 1957 through August 2011 — the result service capped the query at 5,000 of roughly 7,366 launches, so 2011–2026 is not shown. 41 named site records, 18 operator blocs.

Orbital launch attempts per year, stacked by operating bloc. Hover a year for exact counts and busiest sites.

The Soviet Union alone accounts for 2,392 of the 5,000 attempts here — 48% — peaking in 1976, the busiest year of the whole extract with 129 launches. planet4589.org

By 2011, the last full year in the extract, the field is multipolar: Russia 26, United States 16, China 15, Europe 7, Japan 2, and 4 by other operators. planet4589.org

Only 3 of the 5,000 launches used a site record GCAT still marks active — all Iranian Safir flights from Semnan. Most historical records carry a TStop even when a successor spaceport is busy today. planet4589.org

Two Baykonur naming eras (NIIP-5 and GIK-5) plus Plesetsk’s 53rd test range together host 2,725 launches — over half of everything in this extract. planet4589.org

Every launch in the extract

Year	Launch	Date (UTC)	Mission	Vehicle	Site · pad	Bloc	Active	Src

Data: GCAT (J. McDowell, planet4589.org), live TSV files updated 2026-08-29/30; launches whose LaunchCode begins O (orbital attempt, failures included). Extract of 5,000 rows covering 1957-10-04 to 2011-08-17; GCAT lists ~7,366 orbital launches to 2026-08-30, so this page is a capped partial extract and later years are absent. “Active” is Yes where the exact GCAT site record has no TStop or ends on/after 2026-08-30; an inactive record can sit inside a spaceport still in use under a newer name. Blocs grouped for the chart: F, I, I-ESA, I-ELDO and UK as Europe; J as Japan; remaining small programs as Other. Coordinates omitted from the table for space.

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