THE NEW SPACE RACE: China suffers commercial rocket failure but sets record for annual launches.

The launch was China’s 68th launch attempt of 2024, surpassing the national record of 67 launches in a calendar year, set in 2023. The 68 launches include two failures, both of commercial solid rockets: Kinetica-1 and Hyperbola-1 from iSpace in July.

China is second for launches in 2024 behind the U.S., with over 150 launches including Rocket Lab launches from New Zealand, and ahead of Russia, with 17 launches. U.S. launches were dominated by the SpaceX Falcon 9, while Russia’s annual launch activity continued to decline, from 25 in 2021, 22 in 2022 and 19 in 2023.

China overall fell well short of a 100 launches forecast by state-owned main space contractor CASC early in the year.

SpaceX (so far) accounted for 125 those 150+ US launches, plus three Starship test flights.