Launching rockets into orbit is an expensive business. So costly that in the past only government space agencies transported astronauts or satellites into space. In recent years, however, the private space industry has been booming. Government agencies have outsourced many launches to contractors and private companies like Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX have launched their own endeavors as well, providing varying degrees of suborbital and orbital space travel and transportation. In 2023, according to Bryce Tech, private providers launched more than 180 rockets - of which SpaceX alone sent 96 rockets into orbit, followed by Chinese contractor CASC with 45.
This compares with just around 30 launches by space agencies themselves. The leader in this category is Russian space agency Roscosmos with 18 launches, the third-most in 2023. India's ISRO comes fifth with seven launches.
