OrbitalWiki
Index/data

The satellite dataset, maintained

The Union of Concerned Scientists Satellite Database was the file everybody used, and it has not been updated since May 2023. This is a current one. The orbital and identity columns keep UCS’s names, so code that reads those keeps working; nine research columns are absent and the launch date is ISO 8601, both listed below. 16,564 objects, CSV or JSON, no key and no sign-up.

Download

Everything we hold

CSVJSON

Every object in this catalog, which is very nearly all payloads. See the coverage note below before you assume otherwise.

Active payloads

CSVJSON

Payloads with current orbital elements and no decay date. The closest equivalent to what the UCS database contained.

Starlink

CSVJSON

Every Starlink object in the catalog. Two thirds of it by itself.

Catalog last updated 2026-08-15 12:30 UTC, read from the newest record in it rather than from the clock.

Regenerated from the live catalog on request, cached for six hours, which is how often we refetch the elements. The elements themselves are older than that: typically a day or two past their epoch, and measured on 2026-08-05 half of them were more than 33 hours old and 95 per cent within 48. 20 downloads per network per day, so save the file and share that rather than the link.

OrbitalWiki’s compilation is licensed under the Open Database License 1.0 and attribution is required. The upstream records keep their own terms, and CelesTrak states no reuse licence: see sources.

What this dataset is not

It is not a debris catalog. Counted from the catalog itself, it holds 16,558 payloads, 3 debris objects, 2 rocket bodies and 1 object whose class is unrecorded, which is the 16,564 above. That is because it is built from CelesTrak’s active-satellite group, which is a curated list of working spacecraft. We planned a debris download and dropped it rather than publish one with 5 rows in it. For debris, go to Space-Track, which holds the full catalog.

Columns

UCS column names where we hold the same fact, so existing code keeps working. Three columns are ours and are labelled as such.

Name of Satellite, Alternate Names
The catalogued object name from CelesTrak.
Country of Operator/Owner
GCAT state code resolved to a country name, matching what the site shows.
Operator/Owner
GCAT owner, reconciled across name variants.
Class of Orbit
LEO, VLEO, SSO, MEO, GEO or HEO, derived from the current elements, or UNKNOWN when they do not place it.
Perigee (km)
From the current CelesTrak element set.
Apogee (km)
From the current CelesTrak element set.
Eccentricity
From the current CelesTrak element set.
Inclination (degrees)
From the current CelesTrak element set.
Period (minutes)
From the current CelesTrak element set.
Date of Launch
GCAT launch date, ISO 8601 rather than the UCS M/D/YYYY.
COSPAR Number
International designator.
NORAD Number
Catalog number. Six digits for objects catalogued since 2026.
Object Class (OrbitalWiki)
PAYLOAD, ROCKET_BODY, DEBRIS or UNKNOWN. UCS listed payloads only.
Operational Status (OrbitalWiki)
Only where a source states it. UNKNOWN is a real answer here, not a gap.
Active (OrbitalWiki)
Has current orbital elements and no decay date.

UCS columns this file does not carry

Absent rather than present and empty. An empty “Launch Mass” column tells a reader the mass is unknown for that satellite, when the truth is that nobody researched it.

Users
Civil, commercial, government or military. Human classification; no upstream source publishes it per object.
Purpose
Communications, Earth observation, and so on. Same reason: a research judgement, not a catalog field.
Launch Mass (kg.)
Published for some objects on Wikidata and for most objects nowhere. A column that is empty 90% of the time invites the reader to conclude the mass is unknown rather than unresearched.
Dry Mass (kg.)
As above, and sparser still.
Power (watts)
As above.
Expected Lifetime (yrs.)
A design figure from the operator, not an observation.
Contractor / Country of Contractor
Manufacturer attribution needs research per object.
Launch Site / Launch Vehicle
Present in GCAT and not yet ingested here. This one is a gap in our pipeline rather than in the sources, and it is on the roadmap.
Longitude of GEO (degrees)
Derivable from the elements for geostationary objects, but a derived value in a column readers treat as a stated one.

How to cite it

Attribution is a licence condition, not a courtesy. Both forms carry the retrieval date, because this file changes.

Plain text
OrbitalWiki (2026). OrbitalWiki Satellite Catalog [Data set]. Retrieved 2026-08-22 from https://www.orbitalwiki.com/data
BibTeX
@misc{orbitalwiki_catalog,
  title        = {OrbitalWiki Satellite Catalog},
  author       = {{OrbitalWiki}},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://www.orbitalwiki.com/data}},
  note         = {Accessed 2026-08-22. Compilation licensed ODbL-1.0; sources keep their own terms.}
}

The underlying sources keep their own terms: where every field comes from, and the citation generator for other formats.

Need it live rather than downloaded?

The same data is a REST API. Reads work with no key at all, 50 requests a day; a free key raises that to 1,000. That is the right tool if you need one object at a time, or the catalog as it stands now rather than a file cached up to six hours ago. The elements themselves are the same ones, and no fresher.

API documentationVersioned releases