A U.S. Space Force-created graphic showcasing Space Launch Delta 45’s total of 93 launches for the year 2024. (Michael Frye/U.S. Space Force)
With the end of 2024, Space Launch Delta 45, a U.S. Space Force unit that oversees launch operations at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, has officially cemented its position as the world’s busiest spaceport, according to a service press release.
The SLD 45 team is composed of both guardians and airmen and is headquartered at Patrick Space Force Base in Florida. As the unit in charge of launches from Cape Canaveral, it is responsible for one of the Space Force’s two launch ranges — the Eastern Range. (The other is the Western Range at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.)
In 2024 SLD 45 oversaw a total of 93 successful launches that delivered nearly 1,400 orbital assets, per the release. Combined with the Western Range, those 93 launches brought the U.S. launch count total for the year to 140, according to a SpaceNews analysis of open data. A further 20 orbital launches came from U.S. entities in other countries. SpaceX accounted for nearly all U.S. launches. China performed 68 launches in 2024, SpaceNews said.
That follows another record-breaking year in 2023, when the U.S. had 108 successful launches. That figure beat a record held by the Soviet Union since 1982.
Last year’s launches included milestones for the service, the release notes. In June, astronauts were launched from Cape Canaveral for the first time since 1968, and for the first time since the Space Force became an independent branch of the military. The first Space Force guardian was sent into space a few months later, on Sept. 28, 2024.
The U.S. has remained the world’s leader in orbital launches since surpassing China with a total of 78 launches in 2022, according to a report by the U.S. International Trade Commission. According to another metric that counts the number of objects launched into space (rather than the number of launches), the U.S. accounted for over 80% of the world’s launched objects in 2023 while China accounted for less than 5%.
It is a dominance that the SLD 45 team intends to maintain. The director of the Eastern Range, Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, said in the release that the range increased its launch count by over 35% in 2024 and that “Our team is ready for an even higher launch cadence in 2025.”
