The exact figure stands at 10,006 satellites, according to a tabulation by Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist who expertly tracks comings and goings between Earth and space. This number includes dozens of Starlink demo satellites, but not the dummy spacecraft carried on SpaceX’s recent Starship test flights.

    • becausechemistry@lemy.lol
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      16 hours ago

      It takes a while to go from orbital insertion to operational orbit, but that would be the last 40ish launches worth of satellites working their way up.

      Maybe a good fraction of them are parked as on-orbit backups?