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DELTA-V

Registry · OPS-11

Space agencies and launch operators

Delta-V tracks 60 space agencies and launch operators, together credited with 7,561 orbital launch attempts. The busiest by all-time flight count are Soviet Space Program (2,456), United States Air Force (1,078) and SpaceX (736). 20 of them have at least one launch on the manifest right now.

Operator and customer are two different jobs, and this register holds both. An operator owns the rocket and runs the count, and it is the operator’s name that the launch manifest filters by. An agency or customer funds the mission and supplies the payload, then buys the ride from an operator — so an organisation can be central to a flight and still not appear on that filter. NASA and ESA work that way, and both are in the register below with a full flight record.

Each entry below opens a flight record: total launches, successes, failures, consecutive clean flights, and whatever that operator has sitting on the pad next. Reliability figures are lifetime, not recent-form — a programme that flew badly in 1965 still carries it.

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INDEXED

Each row carries the register’s own classification and that organisation’s lifetime launch attempts. Classification does not decide who flies: some state programmes operate their own vehicles, while others increasingly buy the launch itself from a commercial operator. The full register, ranked by flights, is below.

Register summary

Operator register

SYNCED
Operators tracked60
Combined launch attempts7,561
State programmes27
Commercial providers33
With a live manifest20
Vehicle register

Every tracked agency and operator

Operators and customer agencies together, ordered by all-time flights flown — so an organisation that mostly buys launches sits lower than one that flies them, without being any less tracked. Colour on the reliability readout is a band, not a grade: cyan is 95% or better, amber 80 to 95, red below 80.

Scope: the 60 organisations with the most launches to their name in Launch Library 2. The long tail of single-flight and defunct entities is not carried.

Common questions

How many space agencies and launch operators are there?
Delta-V tracks 60 launch operators — 27 national, multinational or state programmes and 33 commercial providers. That is the busiest end of The Space Devs' Launch Library register, ranked by flights flown; below it sits a long tail of single-flight and defunct organisations.
Why are NASA and ESA not in the operator filter on the launch page?
Because that filter lists the operator flying each scheduled mission — the organisation that owns the rocket and runs the count. NASA and ESA fund missions and supply payloads, and today they usually buy the launch itself from an operator such as SpaceX, United Launch Alliance or Arianespace, so they need not appear on a given manifest at all. They are listed on this page instead, with a full lifetime flight record.
Which launch operator has flown the most rockets?
Soviet Space Program has flown 2,456 orbital launches, more than any other operator on record.
Which launch operator is the most reliable?
Among operators with at least 50 flights, United Launch Alliance has the highest success rate at 100.0% (175 successes from 175 attempts).
How is the success rate calculated?
Success rate is successful launches divided by total launches flown, expressed as a percentage. Partial failures count against the operator. Scheduled launches are excluded because they have no outcome yet.