2013: Space Launch Yearbook

SPACE LAUNCH REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2013

There were in total 81 spaceflight launches by 7 countries in 2013, unfortunately out of these 3 were failures. In the year 2012 there were 78 launches out of which 2 were unsuccessful. 

SPACE LAUNCHES BY FAMILY

Figure 1

Figure 1 Shows the number of launches by different family of rockets, however launches such as the Russian - Strela, European Space Agency - Vega, United States - Pegasus, Antares and Minotaur-1, Japanese - Epsilon, South Korean - Naro-1 (formerly Korea Space Launch Vehicle-KSLV) and the Chinese LV Kuaizhou is not represented because of single launch during the year. The last 3 vehicles had successful launches on debut. There were also a few inaugural launches in 2013, the Falcon 9 v.1.1, Antares, Minotaur V and Soyuz-2.1V. Interestingly, the first three are operated by private companies namely SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, this clearly reflects the general trend at least in the US of gaining commendable position by private companies in the annual commercial launches for all the sectors like the US Department of Defense, Commercial and International Space Station duties. 

There were totally three failures in 2013. The first was the failure of the Zenit-3SL carrying the Intelsat 27 satellite by Sea Launch, and then there was the dramatic accident of a "Proton-M" with three navigation satellites "Glonass-M" and finally the Chinese Long March 4B rocket failed to put the Brazilian Satellite CBERS-3 into orbit. The first two accidents were caused by the malfunction of the first stages of the launch, the last on account of failure of the upper stage.

SPACE LAUNCHES BY ORBIT

Figure 2

Figure 2 Shows the distribution of space launches by orbit. Nearly half of all the launches (40 out of 81) were to the Low Earth Orbit followed by Geostationary orbit (25 out of 81).

SPACE LAUNCHES BY SPACEPORT

Figure 3

Figure 3 Shows the number of launches attempted at different spaceports. The leader of this list is Baikonur spaceport with an impressive tally of 23 Launches by Russia (in 2012 it was 21), Cape Canaveral of the US was followed by 10.

SPACE LAUNCHES BY COUNTRY

Figure 4

Figure 4 shows Russia's leading the race with an impressive 33 launches followed way behind by the US, then Europe, China and India. Also note the entry of South Korea into the space club with its third attempt, the Korean launch vehicle (KSLV) is built with Russian help as the first stage, a semi-cryogenic engine burning Liquid Oxygen and Kerosene is developed by Khrunichev of Russia. Graphics: Viacheslav Pronskyi: - in Russian Language