The next time you check the weather or use your GPS, think about the satellites that allow you to perform these actions every day. These spacecraft are essential throughout the world today, even if we don’t necessarily realize it.
Thousands of satellites actually orbit the Earth, providing key missions such as communication, navigation, weather and even Internet access.
Among all these constellations, we think in particular of Starlink, the SpaceX project aimed at making the Internet accessible in the most rural and isolated regions of the world.
Thousands of satellites orbit the Earth
But then, how many satellites actually orbit the Earth in total? As of October 1, 2025, experts estimated that 13,026 satellites were still active for a total of 15,965 satellites in orbit.
Of course, this number is not fixed. Every rocket launch or decommissioned satellite permanently changes the total number of objects orbiting Earth.
In any case, this is a particularly high number, which continues to grow every year and contributes to aggravating the problem of space pollution. As satellites multiply, space debris also accumulates in orbit.
A rapid and worrying accumulation of space debris
Debris can be fragments from collisions, failures or decommissioned satellites. Tens of millions of them measure more than 1 mm while around 36,000 objects larger than 10 cm have been identified.
We might as well tell you that this accumulation poses serious challenges for the future of space activities. This observation is all the more striking when compared to the recent situation. To give you an idea, less than 2,000 satellites were in service six years ago.
