Commercial space launches hit an all-time high last year, with one blasting off every two to three days.

And that pace is ramping up fasts as U.S. regulators predict the country could see more-than-daily launches by 2034.

A new report by the Federal Aviation Administration – which licenses U.S.-based commercial space launches and re-entries, counted 142 operations in 2024 by seven companies. SpaceX accounted for 83% of the total, or 118 launches.

The remaining 17% were conducted by:

• Rocket Lab (12 launches)
• Virgin Galactic (four launches)
• Blue Origin (three launches)
• United Launch Alliance (two launches)
• Firefly Aerospace (two launches)
• Stratolaunch (one launch)

The report did not include six National Security Space Launches conducted by the Defense Department last year.

Why does all of this matter to Alabama?

North Alabama – where United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin have significant manufacturing and integration operations – stands to gain with a rise in both commercial and national security launches.

Besides being an annual record, the 142 licensed commercial launches of 2024 account for 17% of all 824 commercial launches and re-entries conducted by U.S. companies since 1989.

And the pace is increasing. In June, there were 21 licensed launches, which broke the previous monthly record of 20 set in November. Four operators — Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance — send up payloads last month.

The commercial launch landscape is becoming increasingly competitive, according to the report, with two operators – ABL Space Systems and Virgin Orbit — withdrawing from the sector since 2023.

“The list of firms intending to launch is dy­namic, with smaller launch providers strug­gling in an increasingly competitive market,” the report stated. “New arrivals to the industry face steep barri­ers to entry, including high development costs and intense competition from their es­tablished counterparts.”

Despite that, the advent of larger launch vehicles like Blue Origin’s New Glenn, ULA’s Vulcan, SpaceX’s Starship and Relativity Space’s Terran R – most of which are at least partly reusable – is driving down launch costs. That in turn is leading to more frequent launches.

The FAA report predicts authorized space operations could range from 2,067 to 4,010 over the next 10 years. The high range of the forecast would mean up to 566 launch operations in 2034 – well over one per day.

Satellite deployments, including SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper constellations, account for the majority of missions in the FAA forecast.

One of the ULA launches in June lifted the second batch of Kuiper high-speed broadband satellites. The company expects full deploy­ment of 3,232 satellites by 2031.

Starlink, meanwhile, already consists of over 7,000 satellites in orbit.