space
Starlink Tracker: 11,160 Starlink Satellites in Orbit, Counted Daily
How many Starlink satellites are in orbit today? 11,160 by the reconciled catalog count — 12,446 launched in the legacy catalog plus newer satellites in live tracking — with the shells, the launch-year table, and the 1,813 that have already come down.
Topics: spacex space-civilization
Tags: starlink starlink-tracker satellite-tracker orbit-dashboard
Starlink is the largest satellite constellation ever flown, and it is not close. This page counts it the careful way: two catalog views, reconciled in the open, refreshed daily. For the whole sky — every operator, every rocket body, every fragment — see the orbit dashboard. For the business, see the company page: Starlink.
The count, 2026-11-02
| Measure | Number | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Starlink satellites launched, all time (legacy catalog) | 12,446 | SATCAT text file |
| …of those, still in orbit | 10,633 | SATCAT text file |
| …of those, decayed (reentered) | 1,813 | SATCAT text file |
| Starlink objects in live tracking today | 11,156 | CelesTrak GP element sets, epoch 2026-11-02 |
| Newer satellites in live tracking but not yet in the legacy catalog | 527 | Reconciliation, this page |
| Best current in-orbit count (union of both) | 11,160 | Reconciled |
Why two numbers exist: CelesTrak’s legacy text catalog ends at NORAD 69,999 (launches through July 11, 2026), while the live element sets keep growing past it. The union count — cataloged satellites still up, plus tracked satellites the text file has not absorbed — is the honest total. When a single figure is quoted elsewhere without a date or a source, it is usually one of the rows above, frozen.
Label: Primary data, reconciled. The method is printed because the method is the story.
Where they fly: the shells
Starlink is not one orbit. Grouping today’s 11,156 live element sets by inclination gives the shells (bands under 40 satellites folded out):
| Inclination band | Satellites | Mean altitude |
|---|---|---|
| 53.2° | 5,076 | 459 km |
| 43.0° | 3,608 | 477 km |
| 97.3° | 1,514 | 469 km |
| 70.0° | 951 | 479 km |
The median Starlink today flies at about 473 km. The 53-degree shell is the original backbone; the near-polar bands are what carry coverage to high latitudes and the poles.
Label: Computed from CelesTrak GP element sets, 2026-11-02 — mean-motion converted to altitude, inclinations as published.
Launched by year
From the legacy catalog (complete through July 11, 2026; the 2026 row keeps growing in live tracking — 81 Starlink objects entered the last-30-days group in the past month alone):
| Launch year | Launched | Still in orbit | Decayed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 120 | 11 | 109 |
| 2020 | 833 | 163 | 670 |
| 2021 | 989 | 560 | 429 |
| 2022 | 1,690 | 1,426 | 264 |
| 2023 | 1,984 | 1,788 | 196 |
| 2024 | 1,964 | 1,855 | 109 |
| 2025 | 3,171 | 3,139 | 32 |
| 2026 | 1,695 | 1,691 | 4 |
The decayed column is mostly the early v0.9 and v1.0 generations finishing their service lives and deorbiting — Starlink satellites are built to burn up completely on reentry. Label: Company design claim (SpaceX); the decay counts themselves are catalog fact.
The burn rate
47 Starlink satellites reentered in the last 30 days, and 78 Starlink objects are in the catalog’s decaying set right now. The constellation is a flow, not a stock: satellites go up by the dozens and come down by the handful, every week. The decay watch lists what came down, by name.
Sources
- CelesTrak GP, Starlink group — 11,156 element sets, latest epoch 2026-11-02.
- CelesTrak legacy SATCAT text file — 12,446 Starlink entries through NORAD 69,999 (July 11, 2026 launch cutoff; decay dates current).
- CelesTrak GP, last-30-days group — 81 Starlink objects in the past month’s launches.
This page regenerates daily.