Hello there
This is a very interesting question and the numbers involved may be
somewhat of a surprise. The Cheyenne Mountain Operations Complex is
responsible for detection, identification, and daily tracking of all
man-made objects in space.
"...it is manned primarily by personnel from the Air Force, Naval, and
Army Space Commands and the Canadian Air Force. Their basic mission is
to protect the North American continent and US and Canadian interests
worldwide against threats from space.
These threats come from a variety of sources. They can arise from
dangers such as overhead surveillance of military forces during
conflict. Or, they can also result from accidental events, such as the
reentry of a space object—which might threaten a population center or
trigger a false missile-attack warning—or the collision of a dead
satellite or a piece of debris with an operational satellite such as
the US space shuttle. The only real way to guard against these threats
is to detect any and all space objects, identify what they are (and
what their missions are), and know where they are (or will be) at all
times." - Quote from "Satellite Times," article by Dr. T.S. Kelso. -
http://celestrak.com/columns/v04n01/
For security reasons their figures drag a couple of years but as of
year 2000, they are tracking over 8500 satellites in Earth orbit.
That includes payloads, spent boosters, and other man made debris.
"In order to be able to keep track of everything once it's detected,
the 1st Command and Control Squadron (1st CACS) maintains a catalog of
all space objects orbiting the earth (and some beyond) which are ten
centimeters (about the size of a baseball) or larger in size. Over the
years, they have catalogued almost 25,000 objects. Of the 8,500
objects being tracked today, only about 7 percent are operational
satellites, 15 percent are rocket bodies, and the remaining 78 percent
are either inactive satellites or assorted other space debris.
"Subtracting out the number of active satellites from the total
population, it quickly becomes apparent that there are almost 8,000
uncontrolled objects of various sizes and shapes tumbling through
space at velocities ranging from 3 to 10 kilometers/second. " - Quote
from "Satellite Times," article by Dr. T.S. Kelso. - Same URL as
listed above.
In spite of the seeming high number, they estimate the chance of a
collision with one of these by manned spacecraft as extremely
remote—about one chance in 10,000 years.
Satellites are owned not only by nations and military organizations
but many are owned by private concerns and some are owned jointly by
both governments and private concerns. The main reason for the later
is "piggybacking." or multiple payloads on one craft. It is common
for the same satellite to be referred to by different names. Several
amateur radio satellites fall in this category because they are
piggybacked on another payload, being referred to by the name of the
amateur radio payload by the one user community and the name of the
main payload by another user community.
The largest satellite currently in orbit is the International Space
Station and the smallest the size of dust (bits and pieces freed by
the grinding action of separating fuel tanks and other in orbit
manouvers of larger craft.
The term "satellite" includes all of these bits and pieces, not just
those which are working and delivering data.
The website provided will give you information on everything from
current launches, brightness, observation times, weather & Earth
Resources Satellites, communications satellites, navigation
satellites, scientific satellites and more.
Once again, the true numbers will not be known as for security
reasons, many military satellites are classified as to size, total
numbers in orbit and uses.
Search google
Terms - satellites, largest satellites, smallest satellites, space
debris
If I may clarify anything before you rate the answer, please ask.
Cheers
digsalot. |
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