World · snapshot 2026-09-07 22:36 UTC

Orbital launch capacity

How fast is humanity's capacity to reach orbit growing, and how concentrated is it?

No stored series for orbital-launches yet (held back until the metric is published); the page shows what is available.

DerivedModeled

Section 1 of 9

What changed?

Observed and derived series only. Changes are latest minus the value one, five and ten years earlier.

AI narrative Modeled

No stored series for orbital-launches, orbital-launch-successes, humans-launched or orbital-launches-by-provider-country yet; all held back until the metric is published.

Written by grok-4.3 over the numbers in this snapshot only, validated against them (every figure and cited id had to be in the snapshot), run e693dd3c, prompt 1.0.0. It adds no facts.

No observed or derived series for this topic is stored yet. The references and why each is missing are listed below.

orbital-launches (WLD): held back, held back until the metric is published
orbital-launch-successes (WLD): held back, held back until the metric is published
humans-launched (WLD): held back, held back until the metric is published
orbital-launches-by-provider-country (WLD): held back, held back until the metric is published

Section 2 of 9

How unusual is it?

The primary series against its own stored history (features_v1 rarity and surprise).

AI narrative Modeled

No primary series stored, so unusualness is not computed.

Written by grok-4.3 over the numbers in this snapshot only, validated against them (every figure and cited id had to be in the snapshot), run e693dd3c, prompt 1.0.0. It adds no facts.

Not computed: the primary series is not stored, so there is no history to compare against.

Section 3 of 9

Why might it be happening?

Documented mechanisms, statistical model drivers, hypotheses and unknowns are kept apart.

AI narrative Modeled

Mass to orbit is not ingested, so launch counts understate the growth in delivered capacity. Launch Library data are rate limited; a partial ingest leaves the latest year incomplete until the next run. [mechanism:aace12dc-2d57-41ba-8ce0-bd656d8f2c16] Mechanism: Launch capacity is vehicles times cadence, and vehicles come out of engines, alloys, propellant and precision manufacturing.

Written by grok-4.3 over the numbers in this snapshot only, validated against them (every figure and cited id had to be in the snapshot), run e693dd3c, prompt 1.0.0. It adds no facts.

Reviewed

Documented mechanisms

Launch capacity is vehicles times cadence, and vehicles come out of engines, alloys, propellant and precision manufacturing
Established relationspace-launch → launch-vehicle → rocket-engine → precision-manufacturing

Statistical

Model-supported drivers

Modeled

No active forecast for this topic records driver contributions (the champion may be a baseline with no drivers).

Candidate or hypothesized relationships

Hypotheses

No candidate or hypothesized relationship touches this topic's entities.

Not settled by stored data

Unknowns

Mass to orbit is not ingested, so launch counts understate the growth in delivered capacity.
Launch Library data are rate limited; a partial ingest leaves the latest year incomplete until the next run.

Section 4 of 9

What has not changed?

Fundamentals judged against the 10th to 90th percentile band of their own year-over-year changes (or of their levels when the history is short).

AI narrative Modeled

NASA contract obligations latest 15784687360.99 US dollars 2024-10-01 USA year-over-year change inside the 10th to 90th percentile band of past changes over 16 changes since 2007-10-01 level band 12541180259.62 to 15619392817.058. US Department of Defense contract obligations latest 491745948581.03 US dollars 2024-10-01 USA year-over-year change outside the 10th to 90th percentile band. [obs:272322] [obs:272311] [obs:272320] [obs:272250] [obs:272240]

Written by grok-4.3 over the numbers in this snapshot only, validated against them (every figure and cited id had to be in the snapshot), run e693dd3c, prompt 1.0.0. It adds no facts.

Series	Latest	Basis	Normal band (p10 to p90)	Historical range	Reading
NASA contract obligations Observed NASA contract obligations.	15.78B US dollars 2024-10-01, obs 272322	year-over-year change 768.59M (+5.1%) 16 past changes	-1.02B to 777.18M	12.21B (2013-10-01) to 16.13B (2022-10-01) since 2007-10-01; latest at the 94th percentile of levels	within its normal band
US Department of Defense contract obligations Observed Defense contract obligations.	491.75B US dollars 2024-10-01, obs 272250	year-over-year change 45.7B (+10.2%) 16 past changes	-30.15B to 38.4B	274.2B (2014-10-01) to 491.75B (2024-10-01) since 2007-10-01; latest at the 100th percentile of levels	outside its normal band

Section 5 of 9

What absorbs the shock?

Each buffer names the series or graph entity that evidences it, or says it is not measured.

AI narrative Modeled

Diversification not measured as orbital-launches-by-provider-country is referenced but not available. Substitution graph entity Launch vehicle lists 0 substitutes. Spare capacity inventory and imports not measured. [obs:272322]

Written by grok-4.3 over the numbers in this snapshot only, validated against them (every figure and cited id had to be in the snapshot), run e693dd3c, prompt 1.0.0. It adds no facts.

Geographic diversification

Not measured

No stored series evidences this buffer.

orbital-launches-by-provider-country is referenced but not available (see gaps). Launches by provider country.

Financing

NASA contract obligations

Observed

15.78B US dollars · 2024-10-01 · yoy +5.1% · obs 272322

Public demand for launch.

Substitution

Launch vehicle

graph

The graph records no substitute for this entity.

Substitutes recorded on the graph for launch vehicles.

Spare capacity

Not measured

No stored series evidences this buffer.

Pad and vehicle availability are not published as a series.

Inventory

Not measured

No stored series evidences this buffer.

Imports

Not measured

No stored series evidences this buffer.

orbital-launches-by-provider-country (WLD): held back, held back until the metric is published

Section 6 of 9

What response is underway?

Capacity pipeline, corporate pulses, capital spending and production series, with their year-over-year change.

AI narrative Modeled

NASA contract obligations 15784687360.99 US dollars 2024-10-01 USA year over year 5.1 percent. US Department of Defense contract obligations 491745948581.03 US dollars 2024-10-01 USA year over year 10.2 percent. [obs:272322] [obs:272250]

Written by grok-4.3 over the numbers in this snapshot only, validated against them (every figure and cited id had to be in the snapshot), run e693dd3c, prompt 1.0.0. It adds no facts.

Group	Series	Latest	Year earlier	Change
Capital spending	NASA contract obligations Observed	15.78B US dollars (2024-10-01, obs 272322)	15.02B (2023-10-01)	768.59M (+5.1%)
Capital spending	US Department of Defense contract obligations Observed	491.75B US dollars (2024-10-01, obs 272250)	446.05B (2023-10-01)	45.7B (+10.2%)

The US pipeline and response measures are on the capacity page; bottleneck assessments are on bottlenecks.

Section 7 of 9

Scenarios

Base is the champion model's point estimate; upside and downside are the bounds of its 80 percent interval. No probability beyond the interval's own is assigned.

AI narrative Modeled

No forecast is published.

Written by grok-4.3 over the numbers in this snapshot only, validated against them (every figure and cited id had to be in the snapshot), run e693dd3c, prompt 1.0.0. It adds no facts.

No forecast published for this topic yet.

Section 8 of 9

What to watch

Each indicator is a stored series with a numeric threshold; the reading says which side of it the latest value sits on.

AI narrative Modeled

orbital-launches orbital-launch-successes and humans-launched held back until the metric is published.

Written by grok-4.3 over the numbers in this snapshot only, validated against them (every figure and cited id had to be in the snapshot), run e693dd3c, prompt 1.0.0. It adds no facts.

None of the watch indicators for this topic is stored yet.

orbital-launches (WLD): held back, held back until the metric is published
orbital-launch-successes (WLD): held back, held back until the metric is published
humans-launched (WLD): held back, held back until the metric is published

Section 9 of 9

Forecast track record

Backtests are rolling-origin, out of sample; live evaluations compare published forecasts with the realised values.

AI narrative Modeled

No forecast keys for this topic so there is no track record.

Written by grok-4.3 over the numbers in this snapshot only, validated against them (every figure and cited id had to be in the snapshot), run e693dd3c, prompt 1.0.0. It adds no facts.

No forecast keys are attached to this topic, so there is no track record to show.

The full scorecard is at /forecasts/scorecard.

Provenance

Snapshot: 8 · 2026-09-07 22:36 UTC · navigator_view_v1+navigator_topics_v1
Gaps stated: 8
AI narrative: grok-4.3, run e693dd3c-69b0-444b-9fb8-0743ad4d3a70, prompt 1.0.0, 6 ids cited
Earlier snapshots: none

Every value on this page is a stored observation (obs ids shown), a forecast record, a mechanism or a relationship row, or a percentile computed from those the same way the relevance engine computes its features. Series the config references but the site does not store are listed as gaps under their section, never filled in.