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How many satellites are in space?

As of October 17, 2026, 17,101 satellites are active, and 11,137 of them (65%) belong to Starlink. Count every payload still in Earth orbit, working or not, and the figure is 20,070. Add spent rocket stages and debris and the catalogue tracks 34,337 objects.

17,101

Active satellites

65%

Share that are Starlink (11,137)

20,070

Payloads in Earth orbit, working or not

34,337

Tracked objects in Earth orbit, including debris

NASA's Landsat 9 satellite wrapped in silver thermal blankets inside a processing hall — NASA's Landsat 9 Earth-observation satellite is moved into position for encapsulation at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on August 16, 2021. Photo: NASA/Randy Beaudoin.

Who owns them

United States owns 13,118 of the active satellites, or 77%. Starlink accounts for 11,137 of the active total. Without Starlink the active fleet is 5,964.

United States13,118 (76.7%)
China1,467 (8.6%)
United Kingdom761 (4.5%)
Russia375 (2.2%)
Japan143 (0.8%)
France102 (0.6%)
Italy91 (0.5%)
Germany82 (0.5%)
South Korea79 (0.5%)
India78 (0.5%)

What they do

Communications satellites make up 82% of the active fleet. Earth imaging is next with 1,278.

Communications13,969 (81.7%)
Earth imaging1,278 (7.5%)
Technology demonstration587 (3.4%)
Navigation244 (1.4%)
Signals intelligence223 (1.3%)
Weather157 (0.9%)
Science96 (0.6%)
Earth science75 (0.4%)

Categories are as assigned by GCAT.

Where they orbit

85% of active satellites fly below 600 km, in what GCAT calls lower low Earth orbit. Geosynchronous orbit, about 36,000 km up, holds 575.

Lower low Earth orbit (80 to 600 km)14,601 (85.4%)
Upper low Earth orbit (600 to 2,000 km)1,454 (8.5%)
Geosynchronous orbit575 (3.4%)
Medium Earth orbit196 (1.1%)
Not assigned132 (0.8%)
Highly elliptical orbit59 (0.3%)
Earth escape25 (0.1%)

How fast the count has grown

At the end of 2005, 2,914 payloads were in Earth orbit. By the end of 2025 the number was 17,304, and Starlink alone was 9,388 of those. The count now stands at 20,070.

Payloads in Earth orbit at the end of each year, working or not. Starlink is shown in pink.

All payloads in orbitStarlink

Data table

Payloads in Earth orbit at year end
Year	All payloads	Starlink
2005	2,914	0
2006	2,984	0
2007	3,072	0
2008	3,149	0
2009	3,242	0
2010	3,317	0
2011	3,402	0
2012	3,501	0
2013	3,665	0
2014	3,831	0
2015	3,976	0
2016	4,118	0
2017	4,507	0
2018	4,954	0
2019	5,263	120
2020	6,389	892
2021	8,025	1,791
2022	10,086	3,373
2023	12,259	5,268
2024	13,948	6,898
2025	17,304	9,388

Why other sites give a different number

Satellite counts depend on what a source counts. All four figures here come from the same catalogue:

17,101 active. Payloads that are working or may still be transmitting. GCAT says this status is updated infrequently and is often a guess when a satellite does not maneuver.
16,960 active and in Earth orbit. The other 141 are in solar or lunar orbit, at the Sun-Earth L1 point, attached to another spacecraft, or listed as lost.
20,070 payloads in Earth orbit. Includes dead satellites that have not yet come down.
34,337 objects in Earth orbit. Adds rocket bodies, debris and fragments, an extra 14,267.

A site that quotes about 20,000 satellites in orbit is probably counting the third figure. One that quotes about 17,000 working satellites is probably counting the first.

Sources and method

GCAT by Jonathan McDowell, CC BY 4.0. Active catalogue updated October 17, 2026, current catalogue October 17, 2026. Data from GCAT (J. McDowell, planet4589.org/space/gcat).
Year-end counts use each payload's launch date and decay date from the current catalogue, so they count payloads in Earth orbit on December 31, working or not.
Owner, category and orbit labels are GCAT's. Lower low Earth orbit is 80 to 600 km, upper low Earth orbit is 600 to 2,000 km.