The Top 10 US Launch Companies of '23 - Who Are the Other Nine?

Since this is the time of year when everyone does their take on the best of the previous year, I'll do it again this year.  Last year's piece was on January 2nd, so just after the start of '23, and I'm a little earlier than last year because the piece I'll reference from Ars Technica's Eric Berger was posted earlier than last year's. 

As always, there's more than a little opinion and gut feel here rather than just data, and like last year, chances are everyone would agree the leader by any measure is SpaceX.  Also like last year, for reference and as a common starting point, let me list the other nine in his order.  In the column he devotes a paragraph or two to each of them explaining why he chose them.  To save space, I'll list them here by the ranking and say to go read the original.

2: Rocket Lab
3: ULA
4: Firefly
5: Northrop Grumman
6: Blue Origin
7: Relativity Space
8: ABL Space
9: Stoke Space
10: Virgin Galactic

2:  Rocket Lab 

The rating is the same as I had last year, and I think they had a good year.  They set a new record (10) for launches in a calendar year, and would have had more except for losing the ninth launch of the year and stopping to understand the failure and take whatever corrective actions came up.  They also had some other notable firsts, including opening their first US-based launch site at Wallops Island in Virginia, launching their first hypersonic mission, HASTE, and re-flying a Rutherford rocket engine for the first time as they work toward reusability.

3: Firefly 

Here's my first difference with Ars.  They rank ULA here, while I rank ULA lower.  In September, the Alpha rocket made its first fully successful launch, performing a rapid-response liftoff for US Space Systems Command with the "Victus Nox" mission. That payload was integrated and launched within 27 hours of receiving the launch order.  Eight days ago, Dec. 22, they launched the Fly The Lightning mission for Lockheed Martin, but the second stage failed on its second burn to circularize its orbit.  Still, this is good progress for a launch company.  They're also working with Northrop Grumman to provide engines for Grumman's replacement of their Antares launch vehicle.   

4: Northrop Grumman 

Speaking of Northrop Grumman, the large government contractor launched just a single rocket in 2023—its final Antares 230+ vehicle in August.  While they're working on the Antares 330, they're going to launch their Cygnus cargo containers to the ISS on Falcon 9s through 2024.  At least. 

5:  ULA  

So why do I drop ULA from 3 to 5 compared to Ars Technica?  It's the old axiom of "so what have you done for me lately?"  While they're within two weeks of launching the first Vulcan Centaur, we've heard that before - or something like it.  People used to think "they're expensive, but they're good;" to me, that stops after just the first two words.  Yes, their Atlas V has had a good record over the 20 years it has been flying, but it's a low flight cadence and designed by a different company than the one that's flying them now. To paraphrase Dean Vernon Wormer, "chronically late and over budget is no way to go through life, son." 

6:  Relativity Space 

Relativity, had one launch this year, and like Firefly, the second stage failed.  We can chalk it up to the quote everyone loves to hate, but can't dispute: "space is hard, orbit is harder."  They shelved that Terran 1 rocket and have gone full bore on developing the Terran R, with goals of reusability and more payload to orbit than the Falcon 9.

7: ABL Space

ABL is a hard choice here; they had one launch last January but its flight ended just seconds later after the cutoff of its main engines. This caused the vehicle to crash back onto the launch pad in Alaska.  They have continued work and numerous upgrades have been made to the launch equipment and the first and second stages. Much of the equipment has already been shipped to Alaska for launch.  It's possible we'll see them try again in the first half of the year. 

8:  Blue Origin 

Eric Berger at Ars ranked Blue at #6, so why do I rate Blue below the previous two, who haven't had a successful launch?  Simply because a failure of the second stage in launch is farther along than not having launched at all.  They haven't launched any tourist suborbital flights in over a year, since they had booster failure, but successfully launched that platform with no people on board earlier this month.  Do I have to specifically say they haven't yet launched a New Glenn and that's probably looking like '25.

9: Stoke Space

Now we're soundly in the range of not really a launch company - but they have tested their radically different engines in a test reminiscent of the SpaceX's early Starship hops.  Overall they're doing some interesting things but there's a very challenging road ahead of them.  

10: Virgin Galactic

Last year, Virgin Orbit was the end of the list, but they went bankrupt and then out of business last year.  Virgin Galactic flew their VSS Unity "Space Plane" on suborbital hops six times this year and then said they were going to reduce their launch cadence and focus on development of a successor vehicle.  The next generation spacecraft are due to begin test flights as early as 2025 and theoretically can fly twice per week, with six customers, instead of the three or four passengers Unity is able to carry.  We'll have to see.

Launch of a GPS III Satellite in January of 2023 aboard a Falcon 9  Trevor Mahlmann photo.