Total Number Of Launches (Or Attempts) In History?

Has anyone ever seen the number, broken down by year, from 1957 on?
Mark Wade has a chronological listing of space events, but many of
them aren't launches. I could go through and do a count, but I'm
hoping that someone else has already done so, as there are thousands.
I'm trying to compute a failure rate, both overall, and by year.

On Apr 11, 9:21 am, (Rand Simberg)
wrote:
Has anyone ever seen the number, broken down by year, from 1957 on?
Mark Wade has a chronological listing of space events, but many of
them aren't launches. I could go through and do a count, but I'm
hoping that someone else has already done so, as there are thousands.
I'm trying to compute a failure rate, both overall, and by year.


Jonathan's Space Report website keeps a launch log:

http://host.planet4589.org/

http://host.planet4589.org/space/

http://host.planet4589.org/space/lvdb/index.html

http://planet4589.org/space/logs/launchlog.txt


Rusty

On 11 Apr 2007 10:21:57 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Rusty"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

On Apr 11, 9:21 am, (Rand Simberg)
wrote:
Has anyone ever seen the number, broken down by year, from 1957 on?
Mark Wade has a chronological listing of space events, but many of
them aren't launches. I could go through and do a count, but I'm
hoping that someone else has already done so, as there are thousands.
I'm trying to compute a failure rate, both overall, and by year.


Jonathan's Space Report website keeps a launch log:

http://host.planet4589.org/

http://host.planet4589.org/space/

http://host.planet4589.org/space/lvdb/index.html

http://planet4589.org/space/logs/launchlog.txt

You're a gentleman and a scholar, as always, Rusty.

On 11 Apr 2007 10:21:57 -0700, "Rusty"
wrote:

http://planet4589.org/space/logs/launchlog.txt

That one's fantastic. I've looked it over before... after a while, the
eyes kinda glaze over from information overload, but... wow!

Brian

On Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:26:48 GMT, in a place far, far away, Brian
Thorn made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

On 11 Apr 2007 10:21:57 -0700, "Rusty"
wrote:

http://planet4589.org/space/logs/launchlog.txt

That one's fantastic. I've looked it over before... after a while, the
eyes kinda glaze over from information overload, but... wow!

I wrote a perl script to slice and dice it. The reliability as a
function of year is fascinating. Here's the output:

1957 2 1 66.7%
1958 7 20 25.9%
1959 12 10 54.5%
1960 21 18 53.8%
1961 37 16 69.8%
1962 70 13 84.3%
1963 53 17 75.7%
1964 89 14 86.4%
1965 117 14 89.3%
1966 124 14 89.9%
1967 127 15 89.4%
1968 121 9 93.1%
1969 108 18 85.7%
1970 113 11 91.1%
1971 120 15 88.9%
1972 107 8 93.0%
1973 108 8 93.1%
1974 105 7 93.8%
1975 124 7 94.7%
1976 127 5 96.2%
1977 123 6 95.3%
1978 122 5 96.1%
1979 104 5 95.4%
1980 102 6 94.4%
1981 122 3 97.6%
1982 118 10 92.2%
1983 126 2 98.4%
1984 127 1 99.2%
1985 119 5 96.0%
1986 101 8 92.7%
1987 107 6 94.7%
1988 114 6 95.0%
1989 100 1 99.0%
1990 114 6 95.0%
1991 86 4 95.6%
1992 93 4 95.9%
1993 78 5 94.0%
1994 88 5 94.6%
1995 72 7 91.1%
1996 70 6 92.1%
1997 83 5 94.3%
1998 76 5 93.8%
1999 69 8 89.6%
2000 80 4 95.2%
2001 56 2 96.6%
2002 60 4 93.8%
2003 60 2 96.8%
2004 51 3 94.4%
2005 51 3 94.4%
2006 40 4 90.9%

As might be expected, the early years were pretty awful (though 1957
was better--two out of three, but the US *really* sucked, with that
Vanguard thing...). 1984 looks like the Best.Year.Ever with a single
failure out of many launches. Also note that you have to go back to
the early sixties to find as low a launch rate as we had in 2001 (an
effect of the bubble pop, I suspect). Overall, we seem to have
settled in to the low-to-mid nineties up to last year. I suspect that
will improve dramatically once we go reusable.

Also, note that, since this is a launch record, Challenger is a
failure, but Columbia was a success... ;-)

Rand Simberg wrote:
I suspect that will improve dramatically once we go reusable.

Is a reusable spacecraft inherently more reliable, or do you instead
think that the improvements would come from a vastly increased launch
rate which might be enabled by reusability?

It is a triffle sad that after fifty years things are still in the mid
90's, but I guess a comparison with aviation is difficult since while
the timescales aren't all that much different, the number of attempts
certainly are.

rick jones
from the peanut gallery
--
web2.0 n, the dot.com reunion tour...
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

On Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:03:45 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
Rick Jones made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:
I suspect that will improve dramatically once we go reusable.

Is a reusable spacecraft inherently more reliable, or do you instead
think that the improvements would come from a vastly increased launch
rate which might be enabled by reusability?

Both. Going reusable eliminates the issue that every launch of a
vehicle is a first launch (and infant mortality is a significant
factor in reliability). But it also allows a much higher flight rate
to figure out what works and what doesn't. It also allows incremental
testing, so that failures don't necessarily result in vehicle loss,
and test flights cost much less on the margin.

It is a triffle sad that after fifty years things are still in the mid
90's, but I guess a comparison with aviation is difficult since while
the timescales aren't all that much different, the number of attempts
certainly are.

Exactly.

On Apr 11, 2:48 pm, (Rand Simberg)
wrote:


I wrote a perl script to slice and dice it. The reliability as a
function of year is fascinating.
Indeed. Thanks for extracting that.

As might be expected, the early years were pretty awful (though 1957
was better--two out of three, but the US *really* sucked, with that
Vanguard thing...). 1984 looks like the Best.Year.Ever with a single
failure out of many launches.
Might be interesting to plot the introduction of new LVs along next to
it.

Overall, we seem to have
settled in to the low-to-mid nineties up to last year. I suspect that
will improve dramatically once we go reusable.


Does the Space Shuttle qualify as "reusable"? Its ET is single use.

On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 02:13:24 GMT, in a place far, far away, robert
casey made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:


Overall, we seem to have
settled in to the low-to-mid nineties up to last year. I suspect that
will improve dramatically once we go reusable.


Does the Space Shuttle qualify as "reusable"?

No, not particularly. It's partially rebuildable, but mostly
expendable.