Environment Report

The latest Space Debris Environment Report issued by ESA's Space Debris Office is available here. The seventh edition has been released on 12/06/2023.

The slides on the Space Capacity concept presented at the ESPI Event "Limited Orbital Environments: Capacity Approaches to Outer Space" (20/04/2022) are available here.

Environment Statistics

Last update: 06 December 2023

Space debris by the numbers

Number of rocket launches since the start of the space age in 1957
About 6500 (excluding failures)
Number of satellites these rocket launches have placed into Earth orbit
About 16990
Number of these still in space
About 11500
Number of these still functioning
About 9000
Number of debris objects regularly tracked by Space Surveillance Networks and maintained in their catalogue
About 35150
Estimated number of break-ups, explosions, collisions, or anomalous events resulting in fragmentation
More than 640
Total mass of all space objects in Earth orbit
More than 11500 tonnes
Not all objects are tracked and catalogued. The number of debris objects estimated based on statistical models to be in orbit (MASTER-8, future population 2021)
36500 space debris objects greater than 10 cm
1000000 space debris objects from greater than 1 cm to 10 cm
130 million space debris objects from greater than 1 mm to 1 cm

Extended statistics

Here we would like to briefly address and summarise some facts on the space environment. This environment is understood to contain all man made objects, including fragments and elements thereof, which currently, or previously did, reside in an Earth bound orbit. Of specific interest is space debris, defined as all man made objects including fragments and elements thereof, in Earth orbit or reentering the atmosphere, that are non functional (IADC definition). Objects in the space environment can be categorised in two broad categories: The ones which can be traced back to a launch event and for which the nature can be identified, and the ones for which this is not (yet) possible. The later ones will be identified as Unidentified (UI), whereas the former can be further categorised in:

The taxonomy of objects in the space environment can be done based on type as before, but also via the orbital regime in which they reside. A catalogued object will refer to an object whose orbital elements are maintained for prolonged periods of time in a catalogue created by a space surveillance system. An asserted object will refer to an object which has not been reported by a space surveillance system but is known to exist in the space environment by design. Asserted objects include for example rocket bodies which perform a re-entry burn after inserting a payload into orbit prior to consistent detection or tracking by a space surveillance system. As such catalogued and asserted objects are not mutually exclusive and neither one is strictly contained within the other. Catalogued and asserted objects can be categorised in terms of their orbital elements for a given epoch. Orbital regimes used hereafter will be identified based on semi-major axis, eccentricity, inclination, perigee height and apogee height in the table below.

Orbital regime definitions
Orbital regime Description Limits
GEO Geostationary Orbit i < 25°, 35586 km < hp < 35986 km, 35586 km < ha < 35986 km
IGO Inclined Geosynchronous Orbit 37948 km < a < 46380 km, e < 0.25, 25° < i < 180°
EGO Extended Geostationary Orbit 37948 km < a < 46380 km, e < 0.25, i < 25°
NSO Navigation Satellites Orbit 50° < i < 70°, 18100 km < hp < 24300 km, 18100 km < ha < 24300 km
GTO GEO Transfer Orbit i < 90°, hp < 2000 km, 31570 km < ha < 40002 km
MEO Medium Earth Orbit 2000 km < hp < 31570 km, 2000 km < ha < 31570 km
GHO GEO-superGEO Crossing Orbits 31570 km < hp < 40002 km, ha > 40002 km
LEO Low Earth Orbit hp < 2000 km, ha < 2000 km
HAO High Altitude Earth Orbit hp > 40002 km, ha > 40002 km
MGO MEO-GEO Crossing Orbits 2000 km < hp < 31570 km, 31570 km < ha < 40002 km
HEO Highly Eccentric Earth Orbit hp < 31570 km, ha > 40002 km
LMO LEO-MEO Crossing Orbits hp < 2000 km, 2000 km < ha < 31570 km
UFO Undefined Orbit
ESO Escape Orbits

Fragmentation events are currently being categorised according to the assessed break-up cause:

Data presented hereafter will only relate to catalogued objects, and hence next to the increase of the space object population by human activity show the increase in availability of space surveillance networks. The abbreviation OCC (Orbit Control Capacity) will be used to identify Payload objects which can alter their orbit by means of applying demonstrated impulsive or continuous thrust. This thus include all conventional types of space propulsion but not technologies exploiting natural perturbations such as drag or solar sails. Rocket bodies, also described as Stages are all assumed to have OCC. Human spaceflight (HS) related missions are analysed separately, as they tend to skew results in terms of mass and count affected for the space environment and have generally a very high reliability. These mission include manned payloads as well as cargo payloads, but not the rocket bodies which bring them into orbit. An in-depth report will be available here soon.

Objects in Orbit

Objects in orbit count over time subdivided in object classes

Mass in orbit over time subdivided in object classes

Objects in orbit count over time subdivided in orbit classes

Mass in orbit over time subdivided in orbit classes

Reentered objects over time subdivided in object classes

Current number of orbiting objects per type and orbital regime
Orbital Regime PL PF PD PM RB RF RD RM UI Total
LEO 9564 5801 102 228 957 3062 40 575 1128 21457
GEO 792 3 3 9 65 0 0 0 42 914
EGO 521 1 1 48 199 87 3 2 1930 2792
GTO 53 28 1 10 233 201 12 52 727 1317
NSO 280 0 0 1 95 0 0 2 35 413
MEO 75 0 4 49 24 54 1 4 426 637
LMO 82 137 5 46 246 587 23 214 1043 2383
MGO 66 65 1 2 176 2152 4 0 1294 3760
HEO 30 13 0 1 55 113 0 0 1139 1351
Other 44 0 0 5 5 0 0 0 90 144
Total 11507 6048 117 399 2055 6256 83 849 7854 35168
Current mass (t) in orbit per object type and orbital regime
Orbital Regime PL PF PD PM RB RF RD RM UI Total
LEO 3394.6 0.2 0.0 10.2 1422.6 0.0 0.0 8.8 0.6 4836.9
GEO 2603.5 0.0 0.0 1.0 134.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 2739.0
EGO 905.1 0.0 0.0 4.9 401.4 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.2 1311.7
GTO 93.1 0.0 0.0 1.0 539.9 0.0 0.0 23.8 0.0 657.7
NSO 364.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 210.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 575.0
MEO 75.8 0.0 0.0 0.3 37.3 0.0 0.0 4.2 0.0 117.7
LMO 66.9 0.0 0.0 6.9 475.2 0.0 0.0 87.7 0.0 636.6
MGO 89.3 0.0 0.0 1.9 291.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 382.4
HEO 43.5 0.0 0.0 0.1 134.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 178.3
Other 74.4 0.0 0.0 0.1 8.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 82.9
Total 7710.2 0.2 0.0 26.7 3655.9 0.0 0.0 124.6 0.8 11518.4
Current cumulative cross sectional area (m²) in orbit per object type and orbital regime
Orbital Regime PL PF PD PM RB RF RD RM UI Total
LEO 80256.3 0.5 0.0 63.9 10967.6 1.3 4.7 324.4 15.1 91633.8
GEO 25521.2 0.0 23.6 8.4 1462.9 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 27016.2
EGO 11582.2 0.0 0.6 37.0 4273.6 0.0 0.0 0.7 9.0 15903.1
GTO 718.6 0.0 0.0 8.8 5359.8 0.0 0.0 692.8 0.0 6780.0
NSO 3080.3 0.0 0.0 0.8 1846.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 4927.7
MEO 1067.0 0.0 0.0 11.2 395.9 0.0 0.0 21.6 0.0 1495.7
LMO 640.8 0.0 0.0 22.7 5084.3 0.6 0.0 1575.6 0.0 7324.0
MGO 834.7 0.0 0.0 14.5 3132.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 3981.8
HEO 629.3 0.0 0.0 0.1 1357.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1986.4
Other 475.0 0.0 0.0 0.5 71.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 547.0
Total 124805.5 0.5 24.2 168.0 33951.6 1.9 4.7 2615.0 24.1 161595.6

Fragmentations in Orbit

Number of fragmentation events over time subdivided by fragmentation cause

Share of fragmentation causes over time

Missions to LEO and GEO

Launch traffic to LEO over time

Launch traffic to GEO over time

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