Pioneers

7 satellites in orbit, 0 operating.

The count is the catalogue’s as of Nov 8, 2026, 4:17 PM; whether a satellite is operating is as Orbinauts writes it where it has written when the satellite’s mission ended, and otherwise as Jonathan McDowell’s general catalogue believes it, licensed CC BY 4.0: GCAT

A pioneer is a historic satellite famous for what it was first at, whether or not it still works: Vanguard 1 among them. The kind is Orbinauts’ own judgement, which GCAT never gives, so every pioneer here is one Orbinauts writes about.

A satellite’s kind is the one Orbinauts writes for it, else its constellation’s, else the one its purpose in GCAT gives.

The live map has no filter that picks out exactly these satellites.

SatelliteKindOrbit classLaunchedOperating
Vanguard 1, the polished 16-centimetre sphere with six antennas, being fitted to its rocket by a team of Naval Research Laboratory scientists in 1958.
Photograph: US Naval Research Laboratory (public domain)
Vanguard 1		PioneerMedium Earth orbitEnded
TIROS-1, an 18-sided drum tiled with solar cells, on a vibration test stand at RCA in Princeton in 1960, two engineers at the controls behind it.
Photograph: NASA (public domain)
TIROS-1		PioneerLow Earth orbitEnded
Telstar 1PioneerMedium Earth orbitEnded
An exhibition unit of the Alouette satellite, shown by NASA in 1964: a faceted, flattened ball tiled with solar cells, its short antennas raised, on a wheeled stand.
Photograph: NASA (public domain)
Alouette 1		PioneerLow Earth orbitEnded
Syncom 3PioneerInclined geosynchronousEnded
Dong Fang Hong 1PioneerLow Earth orbitEnded
INTASATPioneerLow Earth orbitEnded