The Orbital Environment at Station Altitudes
How crowded are the altitudes where stations fly?
Chapter summary
Every catalogued object whose orbit crosses 370–460 km, from the CelesTrak catalogue, and the re-entry record that shows how fast the band clears.
Key takeaways
- 1
2,204 catalogued objects cross 370–460 km, including 575 debris fragments and 457 rocket bodies.
- 2
543 are Starlink satellites rising to or descending from their shells.
- 3
Drag clears the band quickly: catalogued re-entries rose from about 200–550 a year before 2022 to about 2,000 since.
Key figures in this chapter
- 2,204
- objects crossing 370–460 km
- 543
- of them Starlink satellites
- 415–424 km
- ISS orbit
- 384–386 km
- Tiangong orbit
Source: Setcoin station record: CelesTrak SATCAT, as of 2026-10-20
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