Last year was a surprise disappointment because some unexpected delays meant that the SLS and Vulcan were denied the chance to carry out their maiden launches in 2021. Nonetheless, South Korea got to carry out another flight of its first-ever space rocket since the early 2010s, the Nuri, even though the first orbital launch of the Nuri didn't exactly make it to the intended orbit. Regardless, 2022 promises a lot of historic firsts in rocket innovation.
Safe bets for 2022:
- First orbital launch of Angara 1.2
- SLS
- Starship/Super Heavy
- Vulcan
Announced for 2022:
- Ariane 6
- H3
Maybe:
- New Glenn
There are a number of others notionally in 2022:
- Relativity Space, Terran-1 (US)
- ABL Space Systems, RS1 (US)
- Rocket Factory Augsburg, RFA One (DE)
- ISAR Aerospace, Spectrum (DE)
- Skyrora, Skyrora XL (UK)
- Orbex, Prime (UK)
- i-Space, Hyperbola-2 (CN)
- Landspace, Zhuque-2 (CN)
- LinkSpace, NewLine-1 (CN)
Some are more likely than others, but I expect a non-zero number from the list to launch in 2022
--- Tony
Last year was a surprise disappointment because some unexpected delays meant that the SLS and Vulcan were denied the chance to carry out their maiden launches in 2021. Nonetheless, South Korea got to carry out another flight of its first-ever space rocket since the early 2010s, the Nuri, even though the first orbital launch of the Nuri didn't exactly make it to the intended orbit. Regardless, 2022 promises a lot of historic firsts in rocket innovation.
Safe bets for 2022:
- First orbital launch of Angara 1.2
- SLS
- Starship/Super Heavy
- Vulcan
Announced for 2022:
- Ariane 6
- H3
Maybe:
- New Glenn
I don't think Vulcan is a safe bet - both its engine and its initial payloads have been seriously delayed and if Eric Berger is correct, ULA won't get flight-worthy BE-4s before Q2 2022.
Last year was a surprise disappointment because some unexpected delays meant that the SLS and Vulcan were denied the chance to carry out their maiden launches in 2021. Nonetheless, South Korea got to carry out another flight of its first-ever space rocket since the early 2010s, the Nuri, even though the first orbital launch of the Nuri didn't exactly make it to the intended orbit. Regardless, 2022 promises a lot of historic firsts in rocket innovation.
Safe bets for 2022:
- First orbital launch of Angara 1.2
- SLS
- Starship/Super Heavy
- Vulcan
Announced for 2022:
- Ariane 6
- H3
Maybe:
- New Glenn
I don't think Vulcan is a safe bet - both its engine and its initial payloads have been seriously delayed and if Eric Berger is correct, ULA won't get flight-worthy BE-4s before Q2 2022.
The prediction that the first SLS launch and first orbital Angara 1.2 launch would occur in 2022 turned out to be correct, although the H3 did not fly until last month, and the first flights of the Starship and Vulcan have been postponed to this year.
Also, the Ariane 6 is now scheduled to fly later this year, while the maiden launch of the New Glenn is now scheduled for 2025.
2022 ended up with the following inaugural launches and
end-of-year totals. I've also added the three 2023 inaugurals
during Q1, which all failed. A lot of infant mortality, of a sort.
Launches(Failures)
First 12/31/22 3/31/23
---------------------------------------
Angara 1.2 1(0) 2(0) 2(0)
CZ-6A 1(0) 2(0) 2(0)
Jielong 3 1(0) 1(0) 1(0)
SLS 1(0) 1(0) 1(0)
SSLV 1(1) 1(1) 2(1)
Vega-C 1(0) 2(1) 2(1)
ZK-1A 1(0) 1(0) 1(0)
ZQ-2 1(1) 1(1) 1(1)
RS-1 1(1)
H-3 1(1)
Terran-1 1(1)
---------------------------------------
8(2) 11(3) 15(5)
- Ed Kyle
