Space Launch Library — Global Launch Aggregator

Scrape upcoming and historical rocket launch data from The Space Devs Launch Library 2 API. Covers about 470 upcoming and 7,600 historical launches (counts move daily) across SpaceX, Rocket Lab, ULA, ISRO, JAXA, ESA, Roscosmos, Blue Origin, Relativity, and dozens more providers. Each record includes launch status, rocket family, mission type and orbit, pad coordinates, weather probability, hold and fail reasons, program tags, and video links.

Features

• Fetch upcoming launches, historical launches, or both in a single run
• All 8+ major launch providers covered — SpaceX, ULA, Rocket Lab, ISRO, JAXA, ESA, Roscosmos, Blue Origin, and more
• Rich per-launch data: status, rocket family and variant, mission type, target orbit, pad coordinates, weather probability
• Hold reasons, fail reasons, and hashtags included for research and tracking
• Provider track record per launch — total, successful, and failed launch counts for the provider
• Program tags (Artemis, Starlink, Commercial Crew) returned as a pipe-separated list
• Video and info URL lists for each launch (where the source has them)
• Optional API key input to raise the free tier's 15 requests per hour
• Pay-per-event pricing at roughly $0.001 per record

Who Uses Space Launch Data and Why?

• Aviation and space insurers — track active missions, pad counts, and historical success rates by provider and vehicle
• News and media teams — pull the next scheduled launches for upcoming-event articles and social posts
• Space industry analysts — analyze launch cadence, provider market share, mission type distribution, and orbital slot demand
• Hobbyists and enthusiasts — build custom launch calendars, countdown apps, or Discord bots
• Satellite operators and integrators — monitor competitor launch windows and identify available rideshare vehicles
• Academic researchers — build longitudinal datasets of global launch activity for policy and technology studies

How It Works

1. You choose a mode: upcoming (scheduled future launches), previous (historical launches), or all (both).
2. The actor queries The Space Devs Launch Library 2 REST API in pages of 100 launches.
3. Each launch record is flattened from nested JSON into a clean output row with all fields at the top level.
4. Output is saved to the Apify dataset — available as JSON, CSV, or XLSX from the Apify console.

Rate limiting: the free API tier allows about 15 requests per hour, and each page of up to 100 launches is one request. Without an API key that is roughly 1,500 launches per hour; a larger run (for example previous with maxItems 0, about 77 pages) stops with the launches collected so far once the allowance is spent, and a run whose very first page is refused fails with an error instead of finishing empty. Provide an optional Space Devs API key to lift the allowance for large pulls. With all, maxItems is shared between the two lists (upcoming gets up to half, the rest goes to historical), so a small cap returns both. Leaving maxItems blank returns 100 launches.

Input

Basic: Get the next upcoming launches

{
  "mode": "upcoming",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Historical launches from any provider

{
  "mode": "previous",
  "maxItems": 500
}

Both upcoming and historical in one run

{
  "mode": "all",
  "maxItems": 200
}

With an optional API key (higher rate limit)

{
  "mode": "upcoming",
  "maxItems": 0,
  "apiKey": "your-space-devs-api-key-here"
}

Input Parameters

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	upcoming	Which launches to fetch: upcoming, previous, or all.
maxItems	integer	10	Maximum number of launch records to return. Set to 0 for all launches in the selected mode.
apiKey	string	""	Optional Space Devs API key. Unauthenticated requests are limited to 15 req/hr; a key raises this to 30/hr or more depending on your tier.

Output Fields

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Unique launch ID from The Space Devs
name	string	Launch name, e.g. "Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-53"
slug	string	URL-safe slug identifier
status_name	string	Launch status: "Go for Launch", "TBD", "Launch Successful", "Launch Failure", etc.
net	string	No Earlier Than launch time (ISO 8601)
window_start	string	Launch window start (ISO 8601)
window_end	string	Launch window end (ISO 8601)
launch_service_provider_name	string	Launch provider name, e.g. "SpaceX", "Rocket Lab USA"
launch_service_provider_type	string	Provider type: "Commercial" or "Government"
rocket_full_name	string	Full rocket configuration name, e.g. "Falcon 9 Block 5"
rocket_family	string	Rocket family, e.g. "Falcon", "Atlas", "Electron"
rocket_variant	string	Rocket variant, e.g. "Block 5", "551"
mission_name	string	Mission name
mission_description	string	Mission description
mission_type	string	Mission type, e.g. "Communications", "Earth Science", "Astrophysics"
mission_orbit_name	string	Target orbit: "LEO", "GTO", "SSO", "Heliocentric", etc.
pad_name	string	Launch pad name, e.g. "Space Launch Complex 40"
pad_location_name	string	Launch site location, e.g. "Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA"
pad_latitude	number	Launch pad latitude
pad_longitude	number	Launch pad longitude
pad_total_launch_count	integer	Total launches ever conducted from this pad
probability	integer	Launch probability as a percentage (weather and clearance combined, 0-100)
weather_concerns	string	Active weather rules flagged at launch time, if any
holdreason	string	Reason for launch hold, if applicable
failreason	string	Reason for launch failure, if applicable
hashtag	string	Mission social media hashtag, if available
webcast_live	boolean	Whether a live webcast stream was available
image_url	string	Mission or rocket image URL
infographic_url	string	Infographic image URL, if available
program_names	string	Space programs this launch belongs to (pipe-separated), e.g. "Starlink|Commercial Crew"
vidurls	string	Video stream URLs (pipe-separated)
infourls	string	Mission information URLs (pipe-separated)
status_abbrev	string	Short launch status, e.g. "Go", "Success"
status_description	string	Full description of the launch status, e.g. "Current T-0 confirmed by official or reliable sources"
detail_url	string	Canonical Launch Library API detail URL for this launch
net_precision	string	How precise the launch time is, e.g. "Hour", "Day", "Month"
launch_service_provider_country_code	string	Provider country code (ISO 3166 alpha-3), e.g. "USA"
launch_service_provider_abbrev	string	Provider abbreviation, e.g. "SpaceX", "ULA"
launch_service_provider_total_launch_count	integer	Total launches by this provider, all time
launch_service_provider_successful_launch_count	integer	Successful launches by this provider, all time
launch_service_provider_failed_launch_count	integer	Failed launches by this provider, all time
mission_orbit_abbrev	string	Target orbit abbreviation, e.g. "LEO", "GTO", "SSO"
pad_location_timezone	string	IANA timezone name of the launch site, e.g. "America/New_York"
pad_country_code	string	Pad country code (ISO 3166 alpha-3)
orbital_launch_attempt_count	integer	Orbital launch attempts worldwide up to and including this launch, all time
location_launch_attempt_count	integer	Launch attempts from this launch site, all time
pad_launch_attempt_count	integer	Launch attempts from this pad (successes and failures), all time
agency_launch_attempt_count	integer	Launch attempts by this provider, all time
orbital_launch_attempt_count_year	integer	Orbital launch attempts worldwide in the launch year
location_launch_attempt_count_year	integer	Launch attempts from this site in the launch year
pad_launch_attempt_count_year	integer	Launch attempts from this pad in the launch year
agency_launch_attempt_count_year	integer	Launch attempts by this provider in the launch year
last_updated	string	When the launch record was last updated (ISO 8601)

Some fields are sparse in the source: in a sample of 100 launches, probability was filled on 0 upcoming and 25 historical records, weather_concerns on 0 and 18, program_names on 15 and 33, vidurls on 3 upcoming, and infourls on 8 upcoming. Empty values are null.

Example Output

{
  "id": "ff0a6a32-6513-4e85-9fd8-a2d022add74d",
  "name": "Atlas V 551 | Amazon Leo (LA-07)",
  "slug": "atlas-v-551-amazon-leo-la-07",
  "status_name": "Launch Successful",
  "status_description": "Current T-0 confirmed by official or reliable sources.",
  "detail_url": "https://ll.thespacedevs.com/2.2.0/launch/ff0a6a32-6513-4e85-9fd8-a2d022add74d/?format=json",
  "net": "2026-05-29T23:53:00Z",
  "window_start": "2026-05-29T23:33:30Z",
  "window_end": "2026-05-30T00:02:30Z",
  "launch_service_provider_name": "United Launch Alliance",
  "launch_service_provider_type": "Commercial",
  "launch_service_provider_abbrev": "ULA",
  "launch_service_provider_total_launch_count": 174,
  "launch_service_provider_successful_launch_count": 173,
  "launch_service_provider_failed_launch_count": 1,
  "rocket_full_name": "Atlas V 551",
  "rocket_family": "Atlas",
  "rocket_variant": "551",
  "mission_name": "Amazon Leo (LA-07)",
  "mission_description": "Amazon Leo is a mega constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit...",
  "mission_type": "Communications",
  "mission_orbit_name": "Low Earth Orbit",
  "mission_orbit_abbrev": "LEO",
  "pad_name": "Space Launch Complex 41",
  "pad_location_name": "Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA",
  "pad_location_timezone": "America/New_York",
  "pad_latitude": 28.58341025,
  "pad_longitude": -80.58303644,
  "pad_total_launch_count": 124,
  "probability": 45,
  "weather_concerns": "Cumulus Cloud Rule, Anvil Cloud Rules, Surface Electric Fields Rule",
  "holdreason": null,
  "failreason": null,
  "hashtag": null,
  "webcast_live": false,
  "image_url": "https://thespacedevs-prod.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/images/atlas2520v2520551_image_20190224012316.jpeg",
  "infographic_url": null,
  "program_names": "Amazon Leo",
  "vidurls": null,
  "infourls": null,
  "last_updated": "2026-05-30T00:53:04Z"
}

Data Source

Launch data comes from The Space Devs Launch Library 2 — an open, community-maintained database of rocket launches. The API is free to use with a rate limit of about 15 requests per hour for unauthenticated clients. Register at thespacedevs.com for an API key to increase this limit.