Cocoa Beach, FL – Florida’s Space Coast, home to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and all orbital crewed launches dating back to the Mercury program, has continued to see record numbers of launches in 2021, matching the record of 31 set in 2020. Three of these launches were with United Launch Alliances’ Atlas V while the rest were SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. Major milestone launches included Dragon Crew-2 and Crew-3, Inspiration 4 (the first orbital flight carrying civilian passengers), and Lucy (NASA’s space probe set to visit Jupiter’s Trojan asteroid belt.)

“2021 certainly solidified the Space Coast’s position as America’s Launch Pad,” says Executive Director Peter Cranis.  “As a top vacation destination, we are the only beach that doubles as a launch pad where visitors are as likely to see a launch when they visit.”

In addition to the 31 launches from the Space Coast, the United States saw a total of 51 launches (48 successful). China took first place with 56 (53 successful), and Russia came in third with 25 launches. China’s highest-performing launch site had 22 launches, solidifying the Space Coast as the busiest site in the world. Altogether, the world saw a record year for space exploration with 145 launches.

The momentum continues for the Space Coast in 2022 with a number of milestone launches planned. These include Space Coast newcomer Astra’s rocket demo, NASA’s Space Launch System Artemis 1 test flight, Axiom Mission 1 (a commercial mission with paying passengers), Dragon Crew-4, Boeing Starliner Orbital Flight Test 2 and Crew Flight Test, and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur.

Visitors can download the Launch Console app to get updates on upcoming Space Coast launches and find great viewing locations by heading to VisitSpaceCoast.com/Launches. 

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Media Contact:
Meagan Happel, PR Manager
Meagan.Happel@visitspacecoast.com
321-474-2204