SATELLITE POPULATION GROWS BY NEARLY A THIRD IN A YEAR

As WAN reported on 7 September, the International Space Summit opens in Paris on 9 and 10 September. Ahead of it, European space situational awareness company Look Up has published, with French weekly Le Point, the fourth edition of its quarterly Space Barometer. The headline figures: 16,819 active satellites now orbit the Earth, up from 13,005 a year ago, a 29 percent increase; 4,737 satellites were launched over the past twelve months, close to 13 a day; and more than 34,000 objects, including satellites, rocket stages and catalogued debris, are now tracked in Earth orbit.

STARLINK STILL DOMINATES, BUT IS BEING RESHAPED

Starlink operates 11,041 active satellites, up from 8,267 a year ago, an increase of 34 percent, and alone accounts for nearly two-thirds of all active satellites in orbit. Around 640 of these are dedicated to Starlink’s Direct to Cell service, which connects satellites directly to ordinary mobile phones without a ground terminal, operating at an altitude of approximately 360 kilometres; that subset alone is roughly the size of the entire Eutelsat OneWeb constellation, which currently comprises 651 active satellites. Starlink is also repositioning part of its constellation into lower orbits.

CHINA’S FLEET GROWS ALONGSIDE A WIDENING MANOEUVRING GAP

China now operates 1,434 active satellites, up 26 percent from 1,136 a year ago, driven by large low-Earth-orbit constellations and increasingly advanced in-orbit manoeuvring. The report cites the fourth flight of China’s experimental spaceplane, which released an object of around 500 kilograms and then conducted several proximity operations with it in orbit, without drawing conclusions about the purpose of those operations. Separately, in July 2026, US company True Anomaly conducted a pursuit-and-evasion exercise between two of its own satellites, Jackal-4 and Puma, part of the US Space Force’s Victus Haze programme, with some approaches flown autonomously using onboard sensors, an illustration of how proximity-operation capability once mostly associated with state programmes is starting to reach commercial operators, albeit here still under a government contract.

A MORE CROWDED, MORE ACTIVE ENVIRONMENT

The growth in satellite numbers is only part of the picture. Over the past year, 1,412 objects were deorbited, including 914 satellites, 507 of them Starlink craft, reflecting the constellation’s continuous renewal. Not all orbital change is planned: in late August, the Chinese Yaogan 50-02 satellite, orbiting at roughly 960 kilometres, broke apart, generating 42 new pieces of catalogued debris across orbits ranging from 600 to 1,100 kilometres.

“We are no longer simply facing an increase in the number of satellites, but a profound transformation of the orbital environment. Constellations are expanding, satellites are manoeuvring more frequently, and proximity operations are multiplying. In a space domain that has become strategic and contested, knowing precisely what is happening in orbit is now a prerequisite for sovereignty. For Europe, mastering space begins with mastering space domain awareness,” said Michel Friedling, co-founder and chief executive of Look Up and former Commander of French Space Command.