Most satellites in orbit (country)

According to figures provided by the ASTRIAGraph team at the University of Texas on 15 Feb 2022, a total of 3,582 of the 8,239 satellites currently in Earth orbit belong to the United States government or US-based private companies.

The number of US-launched payloads in orbit has more than doubled in the last three years due to the creation of a number of large "constellations" of small, relatively cheap communications satellites. The most extensive and well-known of these is the SpaceX Starlink constellation, which includes 1,877 operational satellites as of 15 Feb 2022.

There are no official figures on what proportion of the 8,239 satellites in orbit are still active, as the statuses of military and reconnaissance ("spy") satellites are not publicly disclosed. ASTRIAgraph, however, estimates that there are around 3,935 inactive satellites.