Satellite constellations
A constellation is a fleet flown as one system: enough satellites, in enough planes, that at least one is always where it is needed. Navigation needs four in view at once; broadband needs one overhead everywhere at all times.
Every catalogued constellation
- BeiDou
China's global navigation satellite system, using a mix of medium-Earth, geostationary, and inclined geosynchronous orbits.
- BlackSky Global
A commercial low-Earth-orbit constellation delivering rapid-revisit, high-cadence Earth imagery.
- Galileo (navigation system)
Europe's civil global navigation satellite system — owned by the EU and operated through EUSPA, with ESA as the design and procurement agent — offering high-accuracy positioning independent of GPS.
- Globalstar
A low-Earth-orbit satellite-phone and data constellation serving voice, messaging, and IoT connectivity.
- GLONASS
Russia's global navigation satellite system, providing worldwide positioning and timing from medium Earth orbit.
- GPS (Global Positioning System)
The United States' global navigation satellite system, providing worldwide positioning, navigation, and timing from medium Earth orbit.
- Iridium NEXT
The second-generation Iridium constellation of 66 cross-linked low-Earth-orbit satellites providing pole-to-pole voice and data coverage.
- O3b
SES's medium-Earth-orbit broadband constellation delivering low-latency connectivity to telecom, maritime, and enterprise customers between the tropics and beyond.
- OneWeb
A low-Earth-orbit broadband constellation providing global connectivity, focused on enterprise, government, and maritime users.
- Planet Dove (Flock)
Planet Labs' fleet of shoebox-sized Dove CubeSats that image the entire land surface of the Earth daily at medium resolution.
- Starlink
SpaceX's low-Earth-orbit broadband internet constellation, the largest ever built, delivering global high-speed connectivity.
Live orbital data
None of these constellations is tracked live on this platform, and the reason is worth reading rather than inferring from an absence: the public catalogue of orbital elements is served by hosts that refuse automated access or require credentials whose terms do not permit this use, and AsteriaStar does not scrape tracking sites. The full status, constellation by constellation →
Sources & references
The primary and reference sources this topic draws on.
- NASANational Aeronautics and Space Administration
Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.
Most NASA-produced imagery is in the public domain; individual items are checked for usage terms before publication.
- ESAEuropean Space Agency
European missions, observatories, and space science imagery.