How many satellites are in orbit?
As of July 2026: 16,128 active satellites, tracked live — CC-BY, cite as "data: Cosmik"
As of July 2026, 16,128 active satellites are orbiting Earth — a live count Cosmik computes every hour from the official CelesTrak / NORAD orbital catalogue, the same data that powers our 3D satellite map. The breakdown by orbit, operator and Starlink share is below.
Who owns the most satellites?
SpaceX's Starlink dwarfs every other operator. Here are the largest constellations inside the 16,128-satellite total:
| Orbit / constellation | Satellites |
|---|---|
| Starlink (SpaceX) | 10,779 |
| OneWeb (Eutelsat) | 651 |
| Kuiper (Amazon) | 393 |
| BeiDou (China) | 53 |
| GPS (US) | 32 |
| Galileo (EU) | 32 |
| GLONASS (Russia) | 28 |
| Space stations & crew | 23 |
| All other active satellites (weather, imaging, comms, science…) | 4,137 |
| Total active | 16,128 |
Satellites by orbit: LEO, MEO and GEO
Where those satellites actually fly, split by orbital band (derived live from each object's mean motion):
- 15,323 — Low Earth orbit (LEO) — 160–2,000 km up, where Starlink, most Earth-observation satellites and the ISS fly. The overwhelming majority.
- 206 — Medium Earth orbit (MEO) — 2,000–35,786 km, home to the navigation fleets: GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou.
- 587 — Geostationary orbit (GEO) — the ~35,786 km belt of big weather, TV and communications satellites that appear fixed over one spot.
- 12 — Highly-elliptical and above-GEO orbits — a small tail of specialist science and comms craft.
Active satellites vs space debris
The 16,128 figure counts active satellites. Orbiting alongside them is a far larger cloud of junk: Cosmik separately tracks 2,626 catalogued fragments from the four biggest break-up events. Counting every tracked object — dead satellites, spent rocket bodies and debris — pushes the total well past 30,000, and the ESA estimates 130 million+ fragments too small to track. See the debris fields on the live map.
How fast is the number growing?
The population is climbing faster than at any point in the space age, almost entirely because of Starlink. Of the satellites active today, 2,510 reached orbit in 2026 so far and 4,303 launched in 2025. Fewer than 5,000 active satellites orbited Earth at the start of 2022 — the total has since more than doubled. Follow every new rocket launch as it adds to the count.
Live from the CelesTrak / NORAD general-perturbations catalogue, updated 2026-07-22 12:56 UTC. Refreshed hourly.
How this count is measured
This page reads the CelesTrak "active satellites" group — the authoritative public catalogue of operational objects, sourced from US Space Force / NORAD tracking — and counts it live, refreshing hourly. Orbit bands come from each satellite's mean motion; launch years from its international designator. "Active" means operational, so the figure is smaller than the "objects in space" totals that also count debris and dead hardware. Full aggregate figures live on our satellite statistics page.
Cite this number
Everything on this page is free to reuse under CC-BY 4.0 — in an article, a paper, a slide or a dataset. Just credit "data: Cosmik (gocosmik.com)" and link back. Numbers refresh hourly, so the citation stays live. Need a custom cut (by country, by year, by constellation) or a machine feed? Write to hi@gocosmik.com.
data: Cosmik (gocosmik.com), CC-BY 4.0
Frequently asked questions
How many of the satellites in orbit are Starlink?
10,779 of the 16,128 active satellites in orbit are Starlink — about 67% of everything operational, making SpaceX by far the largest satellite operator. See the live Starlink count at gocosmik.com/how-many-starlink-satellites.
How many satellites have been launched in 2026?
At least 2,510 satellites launched in 2026 are currently active in orbit (based on their international designator), following 4,303 in 2025. The real launched total is higher because some are already deorbited; this counts those still operational.
How many satellites are there vs space debris?
About 16,128 active satellites orbit Earth right now. They share space with far more junk: over 30,000 tracked objects in total (including dead satellites and rocket bodies) and an estimated 130 million+ debris fragments too small to track, per ESA. Cosmik tracks 2,626 fragments from the four largest break-up events.
Who has the most satellites in orbit?
SpaceX owns the most by a wide margin, with 10,779 Starlink satellites active — more than every other operator combined. OneWeb/Eutelsat and Amazon's Kuiper are the next-largest commercial constellations.
Explore the live data
Watch all of it move on the live 3D map, get the live Starlink count, browse the satellite database, or see the full satellite statistics and Starlink tracker.
