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by Anonymous on September 25th, 2006

Anonymous

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How many earth launched satellites are currently orbiting the Earth?

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Answers. 10 helpful answers below.

  • by jeanie16 on August 20th, 2008

    jeanie16

    apparently hundreds, and if watching the night sky is anything to go by, in one evening we counted 23 light bodies travelling across the sky, moving at rapid pace, in the period of about 2 hours.............. food for thought.

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  • by Pistachio on August 6th, 2009

    Pistachio

    I think the exact amount of satelites is 8,681.

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  • by BaconDay on August 20th, 2008

    BaconDay

    NORAD keeps a list and an eye on all the satellites, and space junk. I bet their website might have a statistic on how much stuff is up there.

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  • by Kevisaurus is a Carnotaurus today on July 9th, 2008

    Kevisaurus is a Carnotaurus today

    Geocentric orbit: An orbit around the planet Earth, such as the Moon or artificial satellites. Currently there are approximately 2465 artificial satellites orbiting the Earth.
    Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite

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  • by Krezzy374 on September 26th, 2006

    Krezzy374

    Well, that depends on how you define satellite! One definition of the word satellite is a body that orbits a larger body. If you take this as the definition of satellite then the answer to our question is millions! This includes actual spacecraft, and any man-made debris that has been made during the past 30 years of space exploration.
    People call this debris "space junk". "Space junk" orbits at a speed of roughly 7.5 kilometers/second. That is close to 17,000 miles/hour! Think of the damage even a small speck of paint could do to the space shuttle if impact occurred at such high speeds !

    Another definition of satellite is a manufactured vehicle intended to orbit the Earth. This definition makes our count much less because it includes only spacecraft and not debris that orbits the Earth. The Goddard Space Flight Center's lists 2,271 sate llites currently in orbit. Russia has the most satellites currently in orbit, with 1,324 satellites, followed by the U.S. with 658.

    Hope I Helped!

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  • by archimedes on November 12th, 2009

    archimedes

    Unless you have high security clearance in every space venturing country this question is unanswerable, but I can tell you in the next 50 to 100 years this number will fall drastically, literally!

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  • by weezer on December 22nd, 2008

    weezer

    2045

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  • by CaRbOnPrOdUcK is Baccuss on December 31st, 2008

    CaRbOnPrOdUcK is Baccuss

    10,036 objects currently in orbit

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  • by iwnit on December 31st, 2008

    iwnit

    "The United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN) has been tracking space objects since 1957 when the Soviets opened the space age with the launch of Sputnik I. Since then, the SSN has tracked more than 26,000 space objects orbiting Earth. The SSN currently tracks more than 8,000 man-made orbiting objects. The rest have re-entered Earth's turbulent atmosphere and disintegrated, or survived re-entry and impacted the Earth. The space objects now orbiting Earth range from satellites weighing several tons to pieces of spent rocket bodies weighing only 10 pounds. About seven percent of the space objects are operational satellites (i.e. ~560 satellites), the rest are space debris. USSTRATCOM is primarily interested in the active satellites, but also tracks space debris which upon reentry might otherwise be mistaken for incoming missiles. The SSN tracks space objects that are 10 centimeters in diameter (baseball size) or larger."
    Source and further information:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite#Space_Surveillance_Network

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  • by Beverly_W7177 on March 23rd, 2011

    Beverly_W7177

    http://www.ucsusa.org says 957, 436 of which are those of USA.

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