2,963 space objects placed in orbit globally in 2024: Report

In 2024, a total of 2,963 space objects were placed in orbit globally, resulting from 261 launch attempts, of which 254 were successful.

According to the Indian Space Situational Assessment Report (ISSAR) for 2024 released on Thursday, a total of 136 Indian spacecraft, including those from private operators, were launched in Earth-orbit till December 31, 2024.

“There were 261 launch attempts, out of which 254 were successful resulting in an addition of 2,578 operational satellites. A total of 2,963 objects were placed in orbit. This number was less than that of the previous year, which was 3,135 objects from 212 launches in 2023,” the report said.

Five lunar missions underscore the renewed global interest in lunar exploration.

“As of December 31, 2024, the number of operational satellites owned by the Government of India is 22 in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and 31 in Geo-synchronous Earth Orbit (GEO). In addition, two Indian deep space missions, namely, Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter (CH2O) and Aditya-L1 at Sun-Earth Lagrange’s point were also active,” the report said.

There were five launches from Sriharikota — PSLV-C58/XPoSat, PSLV-C59/PROBA-3, PSLV-C60/SPADEX, GSLV-F14/INSAT-3DS, and SSLV-D3/EOS-08 mission, all of them successfully injected the payloads in their nominally designated orbits.

ISRO's GSAT-20 was launched by Falcon-9 Block 5 of SpaceX from Cape Canaveral. TSAT-1A was also launched by Falcon-9. Consequently, a total of eight Indian satellites, one foreign satellite, and six rocket bodies (including POEM-3 and POEM-4) were placed in their intended orbits.

The report also points out that ISRO successfully performed 10 Collision Avoidance Manoeuvres (CAMs) in 2024 to protect its satellites from potential collisions with other objects in space.