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Before 1961, the entire Earth satellite population was just over 50 objects. Now earth orbit is cluttered with: ~11,000 objects bigger than 10 cm, of which ~9,000 are catalogued and tracked (~8000 are of US or USSR origin) - including around 600 functional spacecraft; ~100,000 objects from 1-10 cm -- too small to track, dangerous to spacecraft; and several million objects smaller than 1cm.

What are they? Jettisoned mission junk, rocket fuel, space station garbage, abandoned rocket parts, used nuclear reactors, leaked radioactive coolant and exploded bits (~150 unplanned explosions of rockets and satellites have occured to date). Collisions between orbiting debris make even more debris. Hundreds of close passes (less than 1 km apart) occur daily between catalogued objects. Each year around 100 objects fall out of orbit and survive re-entry, crash landing somewhere on earth. Dozens of earth orbit satellites launched by the USSR and the USA between 1965-1988 used nuclear power. Several have fallen out of orbit and crash landed. Nuclear power systems are being considered for projects in the next decade. About 75 - 100 new satellites are launched each year.

Här kan du spåra alla satelliter uppe i rymden..