• Question: How many space rockets, satellites etc have been launched into space?

    Asked by kaitlyno to Heather, Helen, Hugh, Jane, Julian on 16 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 16 Nov 2014:

      There have probably been about 8000 objects launched into space that we know about. Sometimes there are secret launches for spy satellites and things like that that we don’t know about. The numbers is changing all the time as new things are launched into space.
      Of these about 300 have had humans in them.
      So there thats quite a few, and there is a lot of junk left behind by all these attempts orbiting the Earth,

    • Photo: Jane MacArthur

      Jane MacArthur answered on 16 Nov 2014:

      Well space rockets can be launched carrying more than one satellite to be deployed into orbit, and it very much depends on how you are defining space craft (eg one ‘launch’ of an Apollo mission had a command module, lunar lander, and then some had a rover as well – is this 1 or 3?)
      This is a slightly old article:
      “As of December 31, 2009, there were 6,854 spacecraft launched. This is an average of 132 spacecraft a year over the last 52 years. ”
      http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1598/1

    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 16 Nov 2014:

      Currently there are approximately 2,500 artificial satellites orbiting the Earth. They don’t all orbit at the same distance out from the Earth, but some regions are popular (e.g. a radius that means they rotate at the same speed as Earth, and so stay above the same place all the time). It’s getting quite crowded out there! Take a look at this image, each point represents a satellite or piece of ‘space junk’.

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