December Madness - Launches, Launches and more Launches

[Chris Bergin]

Article previewing up to 15 launches this month, with links to live coverage threads, etc.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/12/busy-december-global-launch-salvo/

[Galactic Penguin SST]

I think Japan's SS-520 isn't going to fly until late in their fiscal year (closer to February-March 2017) per the lack of launch date announcement in their media tour 2 weeks ago.

On the other hand it looks like there might be more from the Chinese with 4-5 launches reported earlier. KZ-1A is probably out (per interview with the rocket program manager a few days ago) but there will be a LM-3B launch with who-knows-what very late this month. 

[William Graham]

It is worth noting, if all of the launches with known dates stick to schedule, the United States will have outlaunched Russia for the first time since 1999 and China will outlaunch Russia for the first time ever. All three countries are currently level at 19 apiece.

                LAU  SUC  FAI   Projected
United States    19   19    0   23
China            19   18    1   22(+1)
Russia/ex-USSR   19   18    1   20
Europe            7    7    0    9
India             6    6    0    7
Japan             2    2    0    4(+1)
Israel            1    1    0    1
North Korea       1    0    1*   1

[Rocket Science]

Space Olympics?

[edkyle99]

It is worth noting, if all of the launches with known dates stick to schedule, the United States will have outlaunched Russia for the first time since 1999 and China will outlaunch Russia for the first time ever. All three countries are currently level at 19 apiece.

                LAU  SUC  FAI   Projected
United States    19   19    0   23
China            19   18    1   22(+1)
Russia/ex-USSR   19   18    1   20
Europe            7    7    0    9
India             6    6    0    7
Japan             2    2    0    4(+1)
Israel            1    1    0    1
North Korea       1    0    1*   1

I propose giving Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S. each one-third credit for that Antares launch. 

 - Ed Kyle

[pippin]

Well, in that case you should also give Russia one third of the Atlas launches

[chewi]

I propose giving Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S. each one-third credit for that Antares launch. 

 - Ed Kyle

Ukraine also participates in european Vega (RD-843 engine for AVUM upper stage) 

[Chris Bergin]

Space Olympics?

Silly Chris would love a podium, with American rockets with gold medals, Chinese rockets with silver medals and Russian rockets with Bronze on a launch pad style podium akin to this:



But that's just me

[woods170]

But that's just me

Feel free to start a party thread. If this isn't one already

[AndyX]

Space Olympics?

Silly Chris would love a podium, with American rockets with gold medals, Chinese rockets with silver medals and Russian rockets with Bronze on a launch pad style podium akin to this:

That podium would only have returned Falcon 9 S1s on it! (The others won't survive to pick up their medals).

[Chris Bergin]

Looks like the final launches of the year have been postponed, so we're at the end of December Launch Madness.

We need to update the medal table to see who got the gold....thinking it was still China?

[edkyle99]

Looks like the final launches of the year have been postponed, so we're at the end of December Launch Madness.

We need to update the medal table to see who got the gold....thinking it was still China?

If you count Antares as a "U.S." launch, China and the U.S. both performed 22 launches during 2016.  The U.S.  had 22 orbital successes, China 20.  Russia had 19 attempts with 18 successes.  This is the first time that China surpassed Russia in launch attempts during a calendar year, I believe.

Cape Canaveral hosted 18 orbital launch attempts (including Pegasus), all successful (the Falcon 9 explosion not occurring during an actual launch try).  Kourou and Baikonur both handled 11 launches.  All of Kourou's were successful.  One of Baikonur's failed.  I'm not sure if Kourou had ever previously beat Baikonur in terms of orbital launch successes during a calendar year.

The U.S. and Russia each performed one launch beyond Earth orbit, the only such launches performed in 2016 (or, for that matter, 2015 considering that DSCOVR was launched into an initial elliptical Earth orbit, from which it moved itself to L1).

China's DF-5 based CZ family performed 19 launches, with 17 successes.  Russia's R-7 had 14 launches, 13 successes.  Atlas 5 and Falcon 9 both had 8 launches with no failures (the obvious asterisk next to Falcon 9). 

 - Ed Kyle

[William Graham]

My final(ish - pending confirmation of CZ-2D outcome) table for the year; USA and China top on 22 launches each, with the USA ahead on the first tiebreaker - successful launches. This is a modified cross-post from https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=15134.msg1620589#msg1620589, where I have previously posted a full list of launches, and further breakdowns.

                LAU  SUC  PAR  FAI
United States    22ab 22    0    0a
China            22   20    1c   1c
Russia/ex-USSR   19bd 18    0    1
Europe            9d   9    0    0 
India             7    7    0    0
Japan             4    4    0    0
Israel            1    1    0    0
North Korea       1    0    0e   1e

Notes
a: - Does not include September Falcon static fire failure
b: - Antares counted under United States
c: - December CZ-2D listed as partial failure pending confirmation of whether payload is salvageable
d: - Soyuz launches from French Guiana are counted under Russia
e: - Outcome of February Unha launch remains unclear; here it is assumed to be a failure

[William Graham]

A few further observations:

Russia made nineteen launches this year (including Soyuz from CSG). Fourteen of those occurred in the first half of the year. Russia has not conducted a military launch since 4 June and has not launched anything except legacy Soyuz variants on ISS missions since 9 June. In the last six months, Russia has not only been outlaunched by the USA and China, but also by Europe (Arianespace).

2016 is the first year since 2009 in which a Proton launch has not failed (either due to the Proton itself or its upper stage). The Intelsat launch was a near miss - thanks to Briz-M the satellite was delivered to the correct orbit despite the Proton's underperformance, so I would qualify that as a successful launch. Only three Protons have flown this year, the lowest number since 1972.

The Proton/Intelsat launch is one of three this year where an upper stage has been called upon to make up the shortfall from lower stage issues. The Soyuz-2-1b/Fregat-M launch with GLONASS-M No.53 (Kosmos 2516) saw the Fregat make up the slack after a third stage issue, and Atlas V/OA-6 where Centaur made up for a premature first stage cutoff.

Presumably Russia's low launch rate was, at least in part, down to the issues with the Soyuz and Proton launches - which occurred twelve days apart. Both the Soyuz-2 and Proton are currently slated for January launches; hopefully once they return to flight Russia's usual launch rate will resume.

And December was the busiest month of the year, with twelve launches (ten successful) and also the most failures (one outright, one partial).

[IanO]

Looks like the final launches of the year have been postponed, so we're at the end of December Launch Madness.

We need to update the medal table to see who got the gold....thinking it was still China?

Even more amazing is the 12-15 launches lined up for January!  This is historically the month with the fewest orbital launch attempts, averaging around four over the last couple of decades.

[Chris Bergin]

NOTAMS for the final Chinese launch of the year retracted, so that's it, USA are the World Launch Champions, 2016.

[ZachF]

It looks the the Former Soviet states/Russia has their lowest number of successful Launches (17) since the early 60s.

Hopefully if SpaceX can get a good launch cadence this year the US can get 30+ launches and keep the crown for 2017 as well