7,434 orbital launch attempts since Sputnik: two Cold-War blocs grew to twenty, yet a handful of sites still host most launches
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.”
The register lists all 7,434 distinct Earth-origin orbital launch attempts — successes and failures — from 1957 through 2026 (snapshot 2026-11-06), resolving to 46 physical launch sites and 20 operating blocs; 40 of the 46 sites are still marked active. Row-level data is single-sourced from Jonathan McDowell’s GCAT catalog, with OrbitalRadar as an independent count cross-check (it reports 7,442).
Launches accumulate on the map, 1957 → 2026
2026
Circle area = cumulative launch attempts from that site up to the shown year.site still active in GCAT’s site catalogsite no longer active. Hover a site for its name, totals and top blocs.
Launches per year by operating bloc
Three sites — Plesetsk (1,687), Baykonur (1,564) and Cape Canaveral (1,395) — account for 4,646 launches, 62% of the register. planet4589.org
The USA (2,481) and USSR (2,454) together made 66% of all attempts; China (810) and post-1991 Russia (900) lead the rest of 20 blocs. planet4589.org
Six of 46 sites are no longer active in the site catalog — including Hammaguir, China Lake, Kagoshima and Yasniy — yet they hold decades of history. planet4589.org
2025 is the busiest year on record with 329 launch attempts; 2026 already shows 258 by the 2026-11-06 snapshot — OrbitalRadar independently counts 7,442 orbital launches overall. orbitalradar.com
Full register — every launch attempt
Year
Date
Launch id
Mission
Vehicle
Site
Pad
Bloc
Site active
Source
Method: 7,434 distinct Earth-origin orbital launch attempts (one row per GCAT Launch_Tag), 1957–2026, from Jonathan McDowell’s GCAT launch log (updated 2026-11-06 11:14) with sites and organization tables (11:15) on planet4589.org; nine Moon-origin ascent launches excluded, failed attempts included. “Site still active” means at least one code of the normalized physical site has an open-ended TStop in GCAT’s sites table; operating bloc is the launch-vehicle state/bloc, not the site’s country. OrbitalRadar.com (7,442 launches) serves as an independent cross-check only. Table paginates for space; all rows load in page.