Nearly Half of the Objects in Earth’s Orbit Are Junk – and That’s All We Know About
Debris is a growing threat to orbital infrastructure, and is becoming worse as the number of launches increases
Getty Images/World Map Courtesy of NASA
About half of the stuff in orbit around Earth can be classified as space junk, and the problem is getting worse with the increase in launch and orbital infrastructure.
Using data from the US Space Force Space-Track.orgEngineering component supply company ACCU determined that there are 33,269 trackable objects currently in orbit. Of these, 17,682 are satellites. The rest is some form of junk, ranging from spent rocket bodies to debris, including objects that have not been identified.
“This means that approximately 47% of the tracked objects are space junk,” the company wrote in a statement. new report. “However, many satellites are no longer operational, meaning the actual proportion of inactive or uncontrolled objects is even higher.”
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Space junk has been accumulating since the first satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched in 1957. Yet the problem has grown exponentially over the past decade as launch costs have fallen and the speed of space flights has increased. The number of trackable objects in orbit increased by nearly 10,000 between 2020 and 2025 alone.
The scale of the issue may be greatly underestimated. ACCU believes there may be millions of objects that are too small to track, such as paint flakes and other debris ejected from rockets and other spacecraft. This poses a major threat: Most objects in orbit are traveling at speeds above 17,000 mph – at that speed, even the smallest particle can cause significant damage to the orbiting infrastructure. In 2024, astronauts aboard the International Space Station had to take shelter after being struck by a small piece of debris, causing a visible chip In a window. That event inspired the beginning of a U.S. government program aimed at finding and monitoring the smallest pieces of debris in low Earth orbit. And in 2025, several Chinese taikonauts were stranded on the Tiangong space station after a suspected piece of space junk shattered the window of their return capsule.
Although there is a possibility that a piece of orbiting junk could injure or kill an astronaut, ACCU’s analysis shows that the greatest threat is to satellites, with 7 pieces of junk for every 10 operational satellites.
Despite being a virtually worldwide problem, its causes are not global. The report estimates that China is responsible for 65 percent of debris in orbit, while the US and the Commonwealth of Independent States – which includes Russia and eight other small countries – are responsible for an estimated 40 percent and 23 percent, respectively.
Space agencies such as NASA, the Japanese Space Agency, and the UK and European space agencies are working to clear low-Earth orbit. Several private companies have also begun marketing their services as space debris collectors. But until large amounts of junk are removed, ACCU called on spacecraft designers to take the threat more seriously.
“Engineers shaping future spacecraft will need to take space debris into account from the beginning,” the report’s authors write. “Each component must be carefully selected for its accuracy, durability and materials to avoid potential impacts. Space debris is a major challenge of the modern space age, but how it is dealt with will drive innovation and define the future of space exploration.”
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