Launching a rocket into orbit should never become routine. There was a time, probably in the '50s and '60s, when a rocket launch made headlines. Now it's just another launch. Last year (2024) there were a record-breaking 263 launches. The US launched 158, China launched 68 and other countries/regions such as Europe, Russia and Japan. Last year only 224 launches were completed and two years ago, in 2022, there were 168 launches. Surprisingly, the future of rocket flight seems to be quite lively as the record was set back in 1967 at 141!
Perhaps surprisingly, rocket flight in its purest form dates back centuries, originating in ancient China. In the 9th century, the Chinese are reported to have fired gunpowder-powered bamboo tubes at their enemies in the first examples of rocket flights. Thanks to the work of engineers and scientists such as Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Robert Goddard, modern rocketry did not take shape until the 20th century.
Tsiolkovsky's theoretical work laid the foundation for rocketry, while Goddard successfully launched the first liquid rocket in the United States in 1926. During World War II, rocket technology developed rapidly, not for exploration but for the search for weapons. Germany's development of the V-2 missile marked the first long-range ballistic missile, while the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union further accelerated missile development. This eventually led to the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 and the moon landing of Apollo 11 in 1969, as well as rocket launches in subsequent years for missions to explore distant planets and establish space stations.
The Sputnik spacecraft amazed the world when it was launched into orbit on October 4, 1954. Photo credit: NASA
Perhaps one of the most spectacular developments in recent years, and in 2024 this was beautifully demonstrated: spaceships successfully landed again under missile control. SpaceX initially advanced this technology quickly by landing its Falcon rockets on drone ships, but last year saw a real milestone.
A reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage lands on the drone ship before being transported to Port Canaveral. Image: SpaceX
The 5th test flight of the SpaceX Starship launch vehicle took place in October. It is the tallest launch vehicle ever flown, surpassing the Apollo Saturn V rocket by 11 meters. After its launch on October 13th and the transfer of the upper stage to a suborbital trajectory (reached space but did not complete orbit before returning), the booster returned! It didn't simply disintegrate or parachute down, but rather used the powerful Raptor engines to return to the launch pad. After descent, it slowed down and almost hovered in the air before maneuvering sideways to line up with the launch pad before touching down again. As she returned to the arms of the launch tower, the arms grabbed the rocket and the engines quit!
SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy booster is back in the arms of its launch pad in Texas. (Source: SpaceX)
There is no doubt that 2024 saw some amazing developments in rocket flight, including but not limited to the SpaceX booster landings. What about 2025? What can we look forward to in the coming year? Well, I'm not sure if we'll see any pure rocket launch hallmarks this year, but there are some exciting missions coming up; NASA launches SPHEREx (new space observatory to map the sky in the optical and near-infrared region), SpaceX launches missions to the lunar surface (Texas built Blue Ghost and a Japanese lander), a new commercial space station called Haven-1 and if anything goes according to plan, perhaps we'll see finally the return to Earth of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stuck on the ISS since June after their planned week-long mission!
This artist's illustration depicts NASA's SPHEREx Observatory in orbit. The mission will launch in 2025. Image Source: From NASA/JPL – https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/spherex, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? curid=143819030
Source: Space Statistics
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