How many satellites are in orbit?
32,873 objects in orbit
- Satellites 19,697
- Rocket bodies 2,214
- Debris 10,372
- Unidentified objects 590
19,697 satellites, working or not
As of Nov 4, 2026, 4:17 AM UTC
Ask Claude or ChatGPT this question: the Orbinauts connector answers it from the same census.
Orbinauts does not count working satellites
The catalogue Orbinauts mirrors records what is on orbit, never what still works: a satellite that failed this morning is in the total above, and so is one switched off ten years ago. Two counts of the working ones are kept elsewhere, and those are the ones to cite for that:
- Jonathan McDowell’s space statistics: 16,810 active payloads (September 2026)
- ESA’s space environment statistics: about 16,000 still functioning (July 2026)
An object leaves the count when Space-Track stops publishing a fresh orbit for it: once its elements are more than 30 days old, or the catalogue records it as decayed, it is out of the total.
Where they fly
Every object above, by the orbit its elements put it in.
| Orbit | Objects |
|---|---|
| Low Earth orbit | 28,350 |
| Medium Earth orbit | 1,175 |
| Inclined geosynchronous | 1,100 |
| Geostationary | 522 |
| Highly elliptical orbit | 1,726 |
Counted by name
5 of the largest names, with who operates them.
| Name | Operator | Satellites |
|---|---|---|
| Starlink | SpaceX | 11,183 |
| OneWeb | Eutelsat OneWeb | 654 |
| Kuiper | Amazon | 392 |
| Qianfan | Shanghai Spacecom | 248 |
| Iridium | Iridium | 105 |
Cite this
Copy either form. The date is the date of the figures above, so it stays true even if you are reading a saved copy.
- In a sentence
- …according to Orbinauts.com, counted from Space-Track’s catalogue.
- As a footnote
- Orbinauts.com, How many satellites are in orbit, orbinauts.com/how-many-satellites-in-orbit, orbits from Space-Track, retrieved November 4, 2026.
- Under a chart or a table
- Source: Orbinauts.com, orbits from Space-Track
What the number means
- What does Orbinauts count?
- Every object the United States catalogue lists as being on orbit with a usable published orbit: satellites, spent rocket bodies, debris and objects nobody has identified. Not an estimate of the pieces too small to track.
- What counts as a satellite here?
- Anything the catalogue classes as a payload: a spacecraft launched to do a job, whether or not it still does it. That is the catalogue’s own class, not a judgement about whether the satellite still answers.
- When does an object drop out of the count?
- When its published orbit is more than 30 days old, or Space-Track records that it has decayed. The count is taken again from Space-Track at every refresh, so an object comes back if a fresh orbit is published for it.
- Why is there no count of working satellites?
- Because the catalogue does not say whether a satellite works, and Orbinauts publishes nothing it cannot check. The counts of working satellites that do exist are given above with the dates they were read.
- How are Starlink and the other names counted?
- By the first word of the name the catalogue gives, followed by a hyphen or a space, and only for satellites: STARLINK-1007 and IRIDIUM 106 count, a rocket body left behind by a Starlink launch does not.
- How often does the number change?
- Every 4 hours, when Orbinauts takes a new catalogue from Space-Track and counts it. The date above is the refresh the figures on this page were counted at.