Space by the numbers

One catalogue, many totals

Every figure in this section comes from one open catalogue, Jonathan McDowell's GCAT, which is licensed CC BY 4.0 and updated as of October 19, 2026. It counts 17,101 satellites as active, yet how many satellites are in space depends on what you mean: active satellites, payloads in orbit and everything in orbit give three different answers, and the page shows all three.

The definitions matter

In 2025 there were 329 orbital launches, up from 264 the year before. Other sites quote different totals because they count attempts, successes or launch campaigns differently, so each page states its rule. The launches per year page and the yearly pages from 2019 to 2026 show the trend. The Florida launch record reaches back to December 6, 1957, and launches from Florida lays it out year by year.

Who owns what's in orbit

The United States owns 13,118 active satellites, and Starlink accounts for most of them. China is second and the United Kingdom third, largely through OneWeb. There's also the clutter. The space debris page counts 34,337 catalogued objects in orbit, of which 20,070 are payloads and the rest are rocket bodies, fragments and components.

One company dominates the launch count

SpaceX accounts for 728 launches in the catalogue since March 24, 2006, and 719 of them succeeded. That's why the SpaceX launches page sits beside the country pages: any list of who launches what has to explain the share of one operator before anything else makes sense.

Satellites by country

Constellations

Orbits and operators

Launches by year

Launches by place