From a two-power duopoly to a multipolar sky: 7,370 orbital launch attempts from 65 sites

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.”

Jonathan McDowell’s GCAT (snapshot 2026-08-31) records 7,370 orbital launches and confirmed failed attempts from 1957 through 2026, flown from 65 launch sites by 20 operating blocs. Of those sites, 41 still have an open-ended pad on the books, 4 are recorded closed, and 20 have no clear status in the pad registry.

1957

United States Soviet Union / Russia China Europe Japan India Other blocs site active now inactive or status unclear

Launches per year by operating bloc

The 2025 record of 329 launch attempts is dominated by the United States (181) and China (92); the Soviet-era peak years never topped 130 for one bloc — planet4589.org

The Soviet Union and Russia together account for 3,345 launches, edging past the United States’ 2,454 — yet Baikonur’s historic complexes sit in the “status unclear” band of the pad registry — planet4589.org

Eight blocs debuted after 1990 — Russia, Brazil, North Korea, a Cayman-flagged operator, Iran, South Korea, New Zealand, Germany and Australia (the last two in 2025) — planet4589.org

Sites whose every recorded pad is closed hosted only 54 of the 7,370 launches: nearly all launch history flowed through infrastructure that is still open-ended or unresolved in the registry — planet4589.org

Registry: every launch, grouped by year × site × pad × bloc

Year	Site code	Site	Pad	Bloc	Site now	#	Launch IDs	Source

Source: GCAT (J. McDowell, planet4589.org), snapshot fetched 2026-08-31; launch log and launch-pad registry both updated 2026-08-30. Scope: all successful orbital launches plus confirmed failed orbital attempts — 7,370 launches in 2,134 year × site × pad × bloc rows. Operating bloc is GCAT’s LVState mapped to readable names; unmapped codes kept as-is. “Active” means at least one registered pad at the site has an open-ended stop date (TStop='*') — an infrastructure statement about the site, not proof the precise historical pad in a row still operates; “Inactive” means every recorded pad has a stop date; otherwise status is unclear. Mobile and air launches keep their GCAT site designation; site_code is the stable identifier and terse GCAT short names are not expanded. Registry view shows at most 300 rows at a time — filter to narrow.