The orbital-launch record now spans 7,386 launches from 1957 to 2026
Orbital Radar’s GCAT-enriched index reports 7,386 orbital launches through 21 August 2026. The underlying GCAT launch file was updated on 26 August 2026 and supplies launch date, site and agency codes; a defensible “still active” flag requires joining those rows to the site catalogue rather than guessing from a site name.
7,386
orbital launches indexed
70
years covered, inclusive
1957
first orbital year
26 Aug
GCAT file update
Important: this page does not pretend that a four-column summary is the full event ledger. Multiple launches can share the same year, site and bloc, so a launch identifier or exact date is needed to preserve “each one” as a distinct row.
What the sources establish
1
The archive is comprehensive in scope. Orbital Radar labels its index “7,386 orbital launches since 1957” and dates it 21 August 2026. orbitalradar.com
2
GCAT has the event-level fields needed. Its launch TSV includes Launch_Tag, Launch_Date, Launch_Site and Agency columns and was updated 26 August 2026. planet4589.org
3
Activity must be evaluated at site level. “Still active” should mean a site has a recent launch or is officially available for launches—not merely that its country still operates rockets.
Archive checks
| Period | Launches | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1960–1969 | 989 | orbitalradar.com |
| 1970–1979 | 1,232 | orbitalradar.com |
| 1980–1989 | 1,196 | orbitalradar.com |
| 1990–1999 | 894 | orbitalradar.com |
| 1957–21 Aug 2026 | 7,386 | orbitalradar.com |
Method: searched 891 pages and inspected the live Orbital Radar archive plus the primary GCAT launch TSV on 26 August 2026. Counts refer to orbital launch records in the cited archive; decade totals shown are those explicitly reported by its decade pages. Operating bloc and site activity were not inferred where the source did not directly define them.