Submitted by Space_Nerd101 t3_1006az9 in space
Hi all! For the past few years on New Year's Eve, I have posted my datasheets relating to rocket launches in that calendar year. With today being New Years Eve, I am once again going to go over the major takeaways of this year and will link the datasheets I made that I base my analysis on.
So first of fall, this year had 179 successful/partially successful orbital rocket launches which is nothing short of an astronomical leap compared to every other year in the entire history of spaceflight. The only year that was even somewhat comparable was the previous year with 135 successful orbital launches which was a record-breaking year in itself. There were two major factors that led to these numbers. One of which was the near doubling of Falcon 9 launches coming from SpaceX to 60 launches which now accounts for nearly 1/3 of all rockets being launched worldwide. The second major factor was the small but significant increases in launches from the Chinese and Indian space industries.
The realm of human spaceflight this year was also very impressive though not record-breaking. Due to fewer orbital human missions, this year falls 2nd, 3rd, or 11th in a variety of categories related to human spaceflight outlined in the datasheet. In addition, there was not as big of a ramp-up for Blue Origin's suborbital tourism program as some anticipated which was only made worse by the New Shepard rocket failure.
All the relevant data from which these analyses were derived can be seen from this link - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W0vPz1-jjT64KHyqyCavc6ad3tDWV3wK3V0ZsaiD7tw/edit?usp=sharing
Although that rocket chart provided a lot of insight, we can always go deeper by analyzing statistics relating to each individual rocket system through the following rocket chart included below.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16AGS-qPXY78s9DPbazP7d19ZUld3ihrKpYWIVEb4XFY/edit?usp=sharing
In addition, this rocket datasheet provides pie charts detailing the percentage of rocket launches each country has and the percentage of mass put into orbit in the second and third tabs. Notably, America either has a plurality or majority in the categories respectively. Part of the reason why America does disproportionately well in launch mass compared to its raw launches is because the Falcon 9 has a far higher mass to orbit compared to almost any other comparable rocket system around the world. Since the Falcon 9 accounts for most American rocket launches, it would only make sense that America would clear 1.3 million kg to orbit while China doesn't even go above 400,000. In addition, another significant contributor to this total is the SLS Block 1 launch which is rated to carry 95,000kg to LEO.
Another notable takeaway from the below chart is that SpaceX is still king when it comes to $/kg to LEO with almost every other rocket system that launched in 2022 being upwards of 2 times more expensive. With the launch of Starship next year, SpaceX's lead will likely only increase in cost/kg and kg launched per year.
In short, this year has been an absolutely record-breaking year, and with Starship possibly beginning to take orbital flights next year the future is looking bright! Till next year's review!
Note: Please feel free to let me know if you believe any of the data is wrong or if you think some of my analysis is unfair.
Below I included some screenshots from the datasheets:
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jm420a t1_j2fu8x0 wrote
I'm a gigantic data nerd, and BI Developer, thank you for posting this!