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Active payloads on orbit, by operator country

Every catalogued payload still in orbit and not decayed, grouped by the operator code CelesTrak records.

United States13.8KRussia / CIS1.7KChina1.6KUnited Kingdom724Japan247TBD144France129India122ESA114Germany101Intelsat (ITSO)100Italy94
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Seriespayloads (payloads)
China1,580
ESA114.0
France129.0
Germany101.0
India122.0
Intelsat (ITSO)100.0
Italy94.0
Japan247.0
Russia / CIS1,712
TBD144.0
United Kingdom724.0
United States13,773

Source: CelesTrak · retrieved 17 Sep 2026 · No redistribution restriction found (usage-policy.php governs rate limits only)

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The ranking is dominated by a single commercial constellation, which is the most important fact about the current orbital environment and the one a chart of "space powers" would obscure. Operator counts are not capability: a hundred small communications satellites and one large signals-intelligence platform count the same here.

A ranked bar rather than a treemap, deliberately — a ranked bar is read faster and compares better, and the comparison is the whole point.

Owner codes are CelesTrak's own and do not always map to states: ESA, Intelsat and SES appear as operators in their own right.

The data behind this chart

Active payloads by operator country — Active payloads in the SATCAT, grouped by owner code.

Source: CelesTrak · retrieved 17 Sep 2026 · No redistribution restriction found (usage-policy.php governs rate limits only)

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