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Every satellite orbiting earth and who owns them (2023)

dewesoft.com

11–20 of 118 posts

Re: Every satellite orbiting earth and who owns them (2023)

#14

> "Earth has 4550 satellites in orbit" Rapidly obsoleted information. SpaceX alone has > 7500 satellites in orbit. It added 2,300+ satellites in the one year period ending Jun 2025.

The next line after the text you quote reads "(as of 9/1/2021)".

Re: Every satellite orbiting earth and who owns them (2023)

#16
post #10

It's incredible how many satellites Space X have launched It's also surprising from a layman's perspective the "freedom" to launch rockets into space without necessarily needing permission, the originating country of course needs to approve it but none else

[flagged]

The only countries even capable of enforcing launch bans stand to gain nothing from them because it just makes launching their own payloads more difficult. There's like ~10 or so countries who are readily launch capable and even less with the military capability to put any pressure to stop foreign launches.

Who's going to regulate? Regulation only works when someone has the power to enforce them. Right now the people with that power aren't the most agreeable. And flexing it is either antagonizing western allies or a declaration of war.

Re: Every satellite orbiting earth and who owns them (2023)

#18

It's incredible how many satellites Space X have launched It's also surprising from a layman's perspective the "freedom" to launch rockets into space without necessarily needing permission, the originating country of course needs to approve it but none else

Permission granted by whom? Agencies and companies that launch satellites are subject only to the laws of the countries in which they are based. And it is not even imaginable to have a NPT-like system where a few "special" countries have the right to launch satellites while the others don't.

Re: Every satellite orbiting earth and who owns them (2023)

#19

Stats that are based only on the number of satellites can be very misleading as they don't differentiate between a 5 ton comm sat and an 1 kg cubesat.

How relevant is that for orbit occupancy?

A 1 unit CubeSat is 10cm³ and max 2kg / unit, occupying a particular location in an LEO orbit at 28,000 km/h / 17,000 mph doesn’t want to be bumping in to anything either.

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