Recovered launch records show the Soviet Union out-launching everyone from 1967 on — in a ledger that is only half the archive
3,394 orbital-launch rows recovered from Orbital Radar's year pages, covering 1957–2026, with launch site, inferred operating bloc and a site-activity proxy dated to the research window ending 2026-08-27.
This is a substantial partial ledger, not every launch. The source archive describes 7,366 orbital launches since 1957, but its year pages exposed a capped subset — generally up to 50 rows per year — so 3,394 rows were recovered. Annual counts below reflect the capped extraction, not true annual totals, and the cap can also produce false "site no longer active" readings.
3,394launch rows recovered
7,366launches described by the source archive since 1957
Extracted launches per year, coloured by operating bloc
First 3,394-row extraction; the 1,217 rows available to this report span 1957–1983. Bars show extracted rows only — years at 50 hit the source-page cap. Hover a year for its bloc breakdown.
Baikonur Cosmodrome is the busiest site in the recovered ledger — 794 rows — and remains active, with orbital use recorded as late as 2026-07-14. orbitalradar.com
Cape Canaveral (462 rows, last use 2026-08-21) and Vandenberg SFB (365 rows, last use 2026-08-22) are the leading United States sites, both still active in the extracted data. orbitalradar.com
Kapustin Yar shows no orbital use after 2008-06-19 across its 44 extracted rows, so the activity proxy marks it "No" — as it does Pt Arguello (last 1963), Wallops Island (last 1995), Woomera (last 1971) and San Marco (last 1974). orbitalradar.com
The source archive is built on GCAT (J. McDowell) and Launch Library 2 / The Space Devs, states "7,366 orbital launches since 1957, 160 of them crewed", and was last updated 2026-08-01 on the 1961 year page. orbitalradar.com
Sample ledger — first three recovered launches of each year
81 of the 1,217 rows available to this report, shown for space; every row links its source year page. Filter by year, bloc, site or activity, or search missions. "Active" means orbital use on or after 2021-08-27 in the extracted subset.
Year
Date
Mission
Launch site
Bloc
Site active
Operator
Site last launch
Source
Method: rows extracted from Orbital Radar year pages (orbitalradar.com/launch-database/year/…), an archive built on GCAT (planet4589.org) and Launch Library 2 / The Space Devs, describing 7,366 orbital launches since 1957. The extraction recovered 3,394 rows (year pages capped at ~50 rows); only the first 1,217 rows — years 1957 through part of 1983 — fit into this report, so the chart and table cover that span and later years were cut for space. Operating bloc is inferred from operator and site text; unresolved rows stay "Other / unclassified". "Site still active" is an operational proxy: Yes means extracted orbital use on or after 2021-08-27 (within five years of the research date 2026-08-27); No means no such use appears in the capped subset and may be a false negative. Bar heights are extracted-row counts, not true annual launch totals. Archive scope and update dates verified 2026-07-16 to 2026-08-18.