Satellite data, free to reuse

For journalists, researchers, and educators

Reproduce azmth's numbers, charts, and screenshots freely, including commercially, with the credit "azmth.space (data: CelesTrak)" linked to azmth.space where possible. No permission needed. Everything is provided as-is; see the limitations below. Suggested citations:

Endpoints

All endpoints allow cross-origin requests. In Google Sheets: =IMPORTDATA("https://azmth.space/data/history.csv"). From a terminal: curl https://azmth.space/stats.json. The daily series starts July 6, 2026 and is append-only.

Definitions

• Active satellites: objects in CelesTrak's active catalog, i.e. with current orbital elements. Mostly operational payloads, plus some backup, spare, and recently launched not-yet-operational craft. Excludes debris, rocket bodies, and dead satellites. Independent context: Jonathan McDowell counts 16,790 active payloads (September 2026); ESA estimates ~15,900 functioning and ~45,700 tracked objects including debris (June 2026).
• Network counts(the site's pages and byConstellation in stats.json): satellites whose CelesTrak OBJECT_NAME matches each network's name pattern, published as definitions.byConstellationPatterns in stats.json. The networks: Starlink, OneWeb, Amazon Leo (Kuiper), Qianfan, Guowang, Rassvet, Iridium, Globalstar, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou. Includes just-launched units not yet in service.
• history.csv constellation columns (starlink, oneweb, kuiper, guowang, qianfan, iridium, globalstar): name-substring match on the CelesTrak OBJECT_NAME, kept with their original meaning. Guowang's production satellites are catalogued as HULIANWANG DIGUI, so the guowang column undercounts the network; guowang_all, added on 14 September 2026 with earlier rows empty, counts names beginning HULIANWANG DIGUI, or GUOWANG and a group number. Includes just-launched units not yet in service.
• launched_ytd: satellites launched this calendar year that are still in orbit and active. A floor, not a launch tally: it excludes early failures, deorbited units, and classified objects, can decrease as satellites come down, and resets each January 1 (UTC).
• Orbit regimes: LEO (apogee up to 2,000 km), MEO, GEO (~35,786 km, near-circular, near-equatorial), HEO (high eccentricity), computed from each object's elements.

Where azmth fits among sources

CelesTrak publishes the raw orbital elements azmth aggregates. Jonathan McDowell's GCAT is the deep-history reference with per-satellite status research. ESA's Space Environment Statistics is the authority on debris. The Union of Concerned Scientists database, long the journalist's standard download, has been paused since May 2023. azmth is the convenient live aggregate layer: current counts, machine-readable, refreshed every 2 hours, with the definitional caveats attached.

Limitations

• Counts inherit CelesTrak's catalog decisions and status lag.
• No debris, rocket bodies, or classified objects.
• Constellation matching is by name, so a renamed or unnamed object can shift counts slightly.
• The daily series begins July 6, 2026; there is no backfill.

Stability promise

Fields and CSV columns are additive-only: names and meanings never change. If a breaking change ever becomes unavoidable, the old shape keeps working for 12 months and this page documents the change with a date. Methodology changes bump the methodology_version in the metadata sidecar.

Corrections

14 September 2026. history.csv gains a guowang_all column, and methodology_version moves to 2. The existing guowangcolumn counts objects named GUOWANG, which turns out to be only the newest batch: China SatNet's production satellites are catalogued as HULIANWANG DIGUI, the Chinese for “satellite internet, low orbit”. That column keeps its meaning, as promised above, and the new one counts the whole production series. Rows before this date carry no value for it. The same correction applies to the constellation table on /stats and to stats.json, where the constellation list now also includes GPS.