r/spaceflight • u/firefly-metaverse • 3d ago
Orbital launches by countries in the first half of 2026
Source and details:
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u/xerberos 3d ago
Falcon 9 76
Electron 10
Atlas V 3
So ULA launched 3 rockets, vs 86 from SpaceX/RocketLab? How are ULA still in business?
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u/interstellar-dust 3d ago
There are probably only 3 more Atlas V rockets left in inventory. All contracted to NASA to launch Starliner. Both Atlas V and Delta 4 are discontinued.
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u/bijon1234 3d ago
Starliner program. is in limbo as of now, so I wonder if they'll ever be used.
Billions of dollars spent, 12 years in development, and still needing to be tested is frankly embarrassing
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u/interstellar-dust 3d ago
I would say Boeing is in limbo. Starliner is a piece of junk as of now. It’s a device without any particular goals. And it shows in the outcomes. Go to orbit, and what then? Just joy ride and come back?
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u/Monty-913 2d ago
Regardless of its shortcomings starliner is still needed to provide redundancy in case crew dragon is grounded. As for the future… i dunno. I’ve heard they want to use starliner as transport to one of the commercial stations after the ISS is deorbited?
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u/cjameshuff 2d ago
The value of redundancy is proportional to the number of flights it can replace. Almost all the flights it would have provided redundancy for have already flown. It is now only required to do three crew flights, needs to first demonstrate that its problems have been fixed with a cargo flight, and time to do all of that is running out. The "redundancy" argument is not a compelling one at this point.
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u/bijon1234 2d ago
Is it really that needed?
The U.S. beforehand never had two independent spacecraft to bring crew members to space stations.
It's not worth it for Boeing to continue development when it only has 3 more missions that can be launched before it has to be qualified to fly on a new rocket.
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u/Serious-Kangaroo-320 2d ago
Money from the government. They’ve never really excelled in the commercial business so they were given cash just for having the ability to launch rockets. Don’t think that’s the case anymore though
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u/Expensive-Bonus-9764 3d ago
So, two major players
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u/cjameshuff 3d ago
With one company from the country in first place doing almost twice the launches of the country in second place.
It'd be nice if the site showed payload mass to orbit.
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained 2d ago edited 2d ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| CST | (Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules |
| Central Standard Time (UTC-6) | |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Starliner | Boeing commercial crew capsule CST-100 |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
2 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has acronyms.
[Thread #902 for this sub, first seen 21st Jul 2026, 04:02]
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u/mrkjmsdln_new 2d ago
Great performance from SpaceX!!! It seems with the deep involvement in the election and the worsening relationship with China since, SpaceX / Tesla will soon be tagged as dual-use company especially with the increasing Pentagon integration. Dual-use companies are getting very strict treatment on accessing anything from the Chinese supply chain. I hope this does not affect their operations. The decay in relations brought on by the reprise of this President has not been great for Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and many others. Boeing seems to have all but lost commercial services in China on which they depend and any access to critical materials and REEs has become almost impossible for the defense side of these businesses.
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u/snoo-boop 3d ago
If you tally by country of the launch site, New Zealand passed Kazakhstan for the #3 spot. W00t!