Emojis in the Unicode standard

European Ariane rockets launching less frequently while Unicode adds emoji codepoints faster than ever. The launch director in Kourou and the Unicode Technical Committee in Mountain View are, between them, defining what counts as a 2020s milestone. The wins are not evenly distributed.

Ariane launches declined as Ariane 5 wound down and the Ariane 6 transition slipped, leaving Europe with reduced launch cadence in this window. Unicode's emoji count climbed from about 1,800 to over 3,600 in the same period as proposals expanded coverage. The negative correlation reflects two completely independent stories: one space programme in transition difficulty, one standards body in confident expansion mode. Different speeds of progress.

Some institutions ran into trouble while others kept publishing updates. The decade was uneven about which kind of work it rewarded.