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Every so often, I check the bar chart on the "Timeline of spaceflight" Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_spaceflight#Orbital_launches_b

Every so often, I check the bar chart on the "Timeline of spaceflight" Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_spaceflight#Orbital_launches_by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_spaceflight#Orbita... Space activity is really picking up. There were 177 successful orbital launches this year, and 135 last year. The best year after that was 1967 with 120 launches... We are in interesting times!

SEJeff 4y ago
You reminded me of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti... This is a golden age of (new)spaceflight and I'm thrilled to be living it.
prox 4y ago
Are there any true competitors for SpaceX? I don’t mean the consortium but more similar operating conpanies?
- metadat 4y ago
  Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is a competitor in theory but in reality as far as I know they have not won a single contract from SpaceX. Not sure if they're even in the ring.
  - geocrasher 4y ago
    How can the be in the ring if they can't even make it to orbit.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is a competitor in theory Not really, even in theory. It's only even remote current participation in the orbital market is the very overdue BE-4 engines it is developing for ULA (which I assume is “the consortium” that the upthread poster excluded in asking about competition.) Currently, its a suborbital launch company with aspirations of sometime becoming something more.
    - nordsieck 4y ago
      > ULA (which I assume is “the consortium” that the upthread poster excluded in asking about competition. Could also be referring to "the National Team".
- apawloski 4y ago
  For launching payloads into LEO? Yes, see Rocket Lab. Small sat operators are using both.
- nordsieck 4y ago
  > Are there any true competitors for SpaceX? RocketLab (Neutron), Relativity (Terran R), and Blue Origin (New Glenn) are all trying. But none of them are there yet. Out of the bunch, RocketLab has the most operational experience. They're also the only company (of the above three) that isn't currently aiming for 2nd stage reuse. It'll be interesting to see how things shake out.
  - mlindner 4y ago
    For people reading, just for clarification, but all three of these rockets have shown no hardware publicly of any of the vehicles besides some engine testing. They're all years away from launching, let alone reaching any kind of scale.
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      Could you clarify this? You can watch Rocketlab launches and they have scheduled and completed missions listed on their website. https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/upcoming-missions/ https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/upcoming-missions/
      - erikrothoff 4y ago
        The launch vehicles listed in the parent comment have never flown. Rocketlab do have a lot of experience launching its smaller vehicle, Electron.
      - mlindner 4y ago
        The other poster responded, but RocketLab's Neutron rocket has not flown at all nor has any public plans yet to fly. Those are flights of the Electron rocket.
- kwooding 4y ago
  RocketLab (https://www.rocketlabusa.com/ https://www.rocketlabusa.com/) services a slightly different segment (i.e. not as heavy) but does take things regularly to space (and in the case of Capstone, to the moon!)
  - thinkcontext 4y ago
    RocketLab has not had much success in raising its launch rate. Meanwhile SpaceX undercut them on $/kg with their rideshare program which likely robbed them of a large number of potential customers, so RLs segment was not as separate as they would have liked. Indeed in their short history SXs rideshares have launched considerably more payloads and more weight than RL in their whole history. There are of course some payload's that want to go to a specific orbit not served by SXs rideshare.
    - chinabot 4y ago
      Yes its David Vs Goliath, but that sums up all space companies not backed by billionaires or Government Pork. saying that I am rooting for both to succeed.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    SpaceX in a single launched more then RocketLab in its whole history.
- thinkcontext 4y ago
  Odd that the other comments don't even mention ULA and Arianespace. SpaceX definitely dominates the competitive market but there is some more nuance than that. In head to head competition ULA won a larger share of NSSL launches than SpaceX. Obviously a lot of people think this will result in taxpayers overspending and was not a really fair competition. ULA and Arianespace have had more success against SpaceX for GEO than LEO missions, though I believe that has lessened over time. GEO is more competitive because SpaceX uses RP1 for its upper stage which is not as efficient as the others that use hydrogen.
  - Rebelgecko 4y ago
    IIRC ULA's accuracy is also a bit better, so for an expensive payload going high up it can be worth it to spend a bit more if it means your $1b payload is gonna last a few more years before running out of fuel. There's also the whole vertical vs horizontal integration thing
    - mlindner 4y ago
      That's somewhat incorrect, and accuracy of the sort you're talking about only really matters for vehicles without any on-board propulsion, which is a rare thing on military satellites. The accuracy certainly doesn't save you "years" of propulsion.
  - nordsieck 4y ago
    > Obviously a lot of people think this will result in taxpayers overspending and was not a really fair competition. Part of this is due to SpaceX bidding Starship for NSSL phase 1 (development) and getting rejected by the Airforce, while ULA, Blue Origin, and Orbital ATK (now Northrup Grumman) got development money for their respective rockets. This meant that SpaceX had to amortize the cost to develop vertical integration, a larger fairing, etc. over their NSSL phase 2 (operational) bid. > ULA and Arianespace have had more success against SpaceX for GEO than LEO missions, though I believe that has lessened over time. GEO is more competitive because SpaceX uses RP1 for its upper stage which is not as efficient as the others that use hydrogen. From what I understand, this is mostly ArianeGroup. ULA does some high energy missions, but they're mostly for NASA/DoD. I'm sure they're hoping to improve their commercial competitiveness with Vulcan, though.
panick21_ 4y ago
Yeah but those 120 launches were of way smaller vehicles then those now. While now we launch some small vehicles. Falcon 9 is huge historically, and so are many of the rockets today. So really the true measure should be tons to orbit, not number of launches. And by that measure I would assume SpaceX alone out-flies 1967.

SEJeff 4y ago

You reminded me of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti... This is a golden age of (new)spaceflight and I'm thrilled to be living it.

prox 4y ago

Are there any true competitors for SpaceX? I don’t mean the consortium but more similar operating conpanies?

metadat 4y ago
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is a competitor in theory but in reality as far as I know they have not won a single contract from SpaceX. Not sure if they're even in the ring.
- geocrasher 4y ago
  How can the be in the ring if they can't even make it to orbit.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is a competitor in theory Not really, even in theory. It's only even remote current participation in the orbital market is the very overdue BE-4 engines it is developing for ULA (which I assume is “the consortium” that the upthread poster excluded in asking about competition.) Currently, its a suborbital launch company with aspirations of sometime becoming something more.
  - nordsieck 4y ago
    > ULA (which I assume is “the consortium” that the upthread poster excluded in asking about competition. Could also be referring to "the National Team".
apawloski 4y ago
For launching payloads into LEO? Yes, see Rocket Lab. Small sat operators are using both.
nordsieck 4y ago
> Are there any true competitors for SpaceX? RocketLab (Neutron), Relativity (Terran R), and Blue Origin (New Glenn) are all trying. But none of them are there yet. Out of the bunch, RocketLab has the most operational experience. They're also the only company (of the above three) that isn't currently aiming for 2nd stage reuse. It'll be interesting to see how things shake out.
- mlindner 4y ago
  For people reading, just for clarification, but all three of these rockets have shown no hardware publicly of any of the vehicles besides some engine testing. They're all years away from launching, let alone reaching any kind of scale.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    Could you clarify this? You can watch Rocketlab launches and they have scheduled and completed missions listed on their website. https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/upcoming-missions/ https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/upcoming-missions/
    - erikrothoff 4y ago
      The launch vehicles listed in the parent comment have never flown. Rocketlab do have a lot of experience launching its smaller vehicle, Electron.
    - mlindner 4y ago
      The other poster responded, but RocketLab's Neutron rocket has not flown at all nor has any public plans yet to fly. Those are flights of the Electron rocket.
kwooding 4y ago
RocketLab (https://www.rocketlabusa.com/ https://www.rocketlabusa.com/) services a slightly different segment (i.e. not as heavy) but does take things regularly to space (and in the case of Capstone, to the moon!)
- thinkcontext 4y ago
  RocketLab has not had much success in raising its launch rate. Meanwhile SpaceX undercut them on $/kg with their rideshare program which likely robbed them of a large number of potential customers, so RLs segment was not as separate as they would have liked. Indeed in their short history SXs rideshares have launched considerably more payloads and more weight than RL in their whole history. There are of course some payload's that want to go to a specific orbit not served by SXs rideshare.
  - chinabot 4y ago
    Yes its David Vs Goliath, but that sums up all space companies not backed by billionaires or Government Pork. saying that I am rooting for both to succeed.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  SpaceX in a single launched more then RocketLab in its whole history.
thinkcontext 4y ago
Odd that the other comments don't even mention ULA and Arianespace. SpaceX definitely dominates the competitive market but there is some more nuance than that. In head to head competition ULA won a larger share of NSSL launches than SpaceX. Obviously a lot of people think this will result in taxpayers overspending and was not a really fair competition. ULA and Arianespace have had more success against SpaceX for GEO than LEO missions, though I believe that has lessened over time. GEO is more competitive because SpaceX uses RP1 for its upper stage which is not as efficient as the others that use hydrogen.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  IIRC ULA's accuracy is also a bit better, so for an expensive payload going high up it can be worth it to spend a bit more if it means your $1b payload is gonna last a few more years before running out of fuel. There's also the whole vertical vs horizontal integration thing
  - mlindner 4y ago
    That's somewhat incorrect, and accuracy of the sort you're talking about only really matters for vehicles without any on-board propulsion, which is a rare thing on military satellites. The accuracy certainly doesn't save you "years" of propulsion.
- nordsieck 4y ago
  > Obviously a lot of people think this will result in taxpayers overspending and was not a really fair competition. Part of this is due to SpaceX bidding Starship for NSSL phase 1 (development) and getting rejected by the Airforce, while ULA, Blue Origin, and Orbital ATK (now Northrup Grumman) got development money for their respective rockets. This meant that SpaceX had to amortize the cost to develop vertical integration, a larger fairing, etc. over their NSSL phase 2 (operational) bid. > ULA and Arianespace have had more success against SpaceX for GEO than LEO missions, though I believe that has lessened over time. GEO is more competitive because SpaceX uses RP1 for its upper stage which is not as efficient as the others that use hydrogen. From what I understand, this is mostly ArianeGroup. ULA does some high energy missions, but they're mostly for NASA/DoD. I'm sure they're hoping to improve their commercial competitiveness with Vulcan, though.

panick21_ 4y ago

Yeah but those 120 launches were of way smaller vehicles then those now. While now we launch some small vehicles. Falcon 9 is huge historically, and so are many of the rockets today. So really the true measure should be tons to orbit, not number of launches. And by that measure I would assume SpaceX alone out-flies 1967.