China’s Xingwang program plans 970 satellites, of which 183 have been launched and 103 are operational.

TeraWave has 5,408 planned satellites and has not yet launched them.

Starlink Gen-2a has 6,720 planned satellites and 5,377 operational satellites as of the referenced week.

Light reflecting off satellites produces streaks and glints that disrupt optical astronomy.

Radio astronomy would become further limited by increased transmissions and electronics noise from large satellite fleets.

China filed the CTC2 constellation with 96,714 satellites.

South Korea’s conglomerate Hanwha has filed plans for 2,000 satellites.

Hughes HVNet has 1,440 planned satellites and has not yet launched them.

SpinLaunch has 1,190 planned satellites and has not yet launched them.

Starlink Gen-1 has 4,408 planned satellites and 2,906 operational satellites as of the referenced week.

Jonathan McDowell analyzed the ITU filing tray and counted 746,909 satellite applications lodged with the ITU before adding SpaceX’s application.

China’s HH3 (Hongqing Tech Honghu-3) system covers planning for 10,000 satellites.

Telesat has 300 planned satellites and has not yet launched them.

There are an estimated millions of pieces of smaller, untracked, and potentially dangerous debris in low Earth orbit.

SpaceX’s proposed satellites would be spaced roughly 50 kilometers apart from their nearest neighbor within each orbital shell.

The low Earth orbit environment already contains considerable mass from thousands of operational satellites and tens of thousands of pieces of tracked debris, including defunct satellites and abandoned rocket bodies.

SpaceX filed an application with the FCC for 1,000,000 additional orbiting satellites.

China filed the CTC1 constellation with 96,714 satellites.

The operating agencies for the 20 largest constellations come from nine nations and include established satellite companies, start-ups, and government agencies, according to the Outer Space Institute.

The Outer Space Institute data set includes only constellations larger than 300 spacecraft.

Starshield has 135 operational satellites.

Lynk has 2,000 planned satellites and six operational satellites.

SpaceX filed with the FCC to use the new fleet of satellites as orbital computing and data centers to power AI applications.

Most proposed ITU constellations were filed by China (about 65) and the United States (about 45).

China’s Quinfan has 78 operational satellites.

China’s Guowang constellation has filings for 12,992 satellites.

SpaceX’s proposed satellites would operate in narrow orbital shells between 500 kilometers and 2,000 kilometers altitude.

SpaceX performed 148,696 collision avoidance maneuvers in the six months ending November 30, 2025.

Adding hundreds of thousands of new satellites would greatly increase the complexity of operations and the risk of on-orbit collisions, according to the Outer Space Institute.

SpaceX’s proposed satellites would each be fitted with laser optical links.

Starlink Gen-2b has 30,456 planned satellites and has not launched any as of the referenced week.

Amazon Kuiper has 3,232 planned satellites, of which 104 are operational.

OneWeb has 643 operational satellites.

China’s Galaxy Space Yinhe constellation plans 1,000 satellites, of which eight have been launched.

New Glenn's first stage is designed for a minimum of 25 flights and uses seven methane-fueled BE-4 engines.

Blue Origin plans to refurbish and reflown the NG-2 booster within roughly three months for the NG-3 mission to demonstrate rapid turnaround capability.

AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 is the first Block 2 satellite designed to deliver 24/7 high-speed cellular broadband directly to unmodified smartphones.

Starting with NG-3, Blue Origin is phasing in performance upgrades to New Glenn that include higher-thrust engine variants and a reusable fairing.

Blue Origin targets no earlier than late February 2026 for the New Glenn-3 launch from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral.

Blue Origin's New Glenn-3 (NG-3) mission will deploy AST SpaceMobile’s first next-generation Block 2 BlueBird satellite.

AST SpaceMobile plans an aggressive multi-launcher campaign throughout 2026 targeting a fleet of 45 to 60 satellites by year-end 2026.

The "Never Tell Me The Odds" booster previously landed on the recovery ship Jacklyn during the NG-2 mission in November 2025.

AST SpaceMobile’s Block 2 strategy relies on fewer, extra-large satellites intended to detect standard mobile device signals from about 500 kilometers away.

The NG-3 mission’s first-stage booster is nicknamed "Never Tell Me The Odds."

Blue Origin's New Glenn-3 (NG-3) mission will include the first in-orbit reuse of a New Glenn first-stage booster.

NASA rescheduled the wet dress rehearsal, the prelaunch test for the crewed lunar flyby mission Artemis II.

Fueling and countdown simulations for Artemis II at Kennedy Space Center in Florida were moved from January 31 to February 2 due to an unusual cold snap at the launch site.

The four crewmembers assigned to Artemis II entered quarantine in Houston and are undergoing health monitoring and predeparture preparations.

The rescheduling eliminated the February 6 and 7 launch opportunities for Artemis II and pushed the next viable launch date to February 8 or later.

The Artemis II wet dress rehearsal will load more than approximately 2.65 million liters of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen into the rocket.