juliensimon/constellation-census

Constellation Census

Part of the Orbital Mechanics Datasets collection on Hugging Face.

Daily census of 19 active satellite constellations, tracking 11,799 satellites (10,583 operational). Top constellations: starlink (9,979), oneweb (651), kuiper (210), hulianwang (154), qianfan (108).

Dataset description

This dataset provides a daily snapshot of all major satellite constellations in orbit, derived from CelesTrak GP (General Perturbations) data. Each satellite is classified by constellation, orbital shell, and operational status. Covers LEO mega-constellations (Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper, Qianfan, Hulianwang), navigation systems (GPS, Galileo, BeiDou, GLONASS), communications fleets (Iridium, Globalstar, ORBCOMM, SES, Intelsat, Eutelsat, Telesat), and Earth observation (Planet, Spire).

Config: latest_satellites

One row per satellite. Currently 11,799 satellites across 19 constellations.

Column	Type	Description
norad_id	int32	NORAD catalog number
name	string	Object name
constellation	string	Constellation ID (e.g. "starlink", "oneweb")
operator	string	Operator name
country	string	Country code
orbit_type	string	LEO / MEO / GEO
shell_id	int	Shell within constellation
shell_name	string	Human-readable shell name
altitude_km	float	Perigee altitude in km
inclination	float	Orbital inclination in degrees
eccentricity	float	Orbital eccentricity
mean_motion	float	Mean motion in rev/day
status	string	operational / raising / deorbiting / decayed / anomalous / non-operational
launch_year	int	Launch year from COSPAR ID
epoch_utc	datetime	TLE epoch (UTC)

Config: daily_snapshots

Per-constellation daily aggregates. Currently 133 rows spanning 2026-03-23 to 2026-03-29.

Column	Type	Description
date	datetime	Snapshot date (UTC)
constellation	string	Constellation ID
operator	string	Operator name
orbit_type	string	LEO / MEO / GEO
total_count	int	Total satellites
operational_count	int	Operational satellites
median_altitude_km	float	Median altitude in km
median_inclination	float	Median inclination in degrees

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

# Per-satellite data
ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/constellation-census", "latest_satellites", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# Constellation sizes
sizes = df.groupby("constellation")["norad_id"].count().sort_values(ascending=False)
print(sizes)

# Daily growth trends
daily = load_dataset("juliensimon/constellation-census", "daily_snapshots", split="train")
df_daily = daily.to_pandas()
starlink_growth = df_daily[df_daily["constellation"] == "starlink"][["date", "total_count"]]

Status classification

Status	Criteria
operational	Altitude within the constellation's shell band
raising	Below or above band, orbit changing toward target (LEO only)
deorbiting	Below band with strong orbital decay (LEO only)
decayed	Altitude below 150 km, or stale epoch + low altitude
anomalous	Unusually high eccentricity
non-operational	MEO/GEO satellite outside expected altitude band

Update frequency

Updated daily at 09:00 UTC via GitHub Actions.

Data sources

All orbital data comes from CelesTrak GP data (NORAD/18th Space Defense Squadron). Constellation membership is determined by CelesTrak's predefined satellite groups.

Related datasets

• starlink-fleet-data — Detailed Starlink-specific analysis with per-shell daily time series
• space-track-satcat — Full NORAD satellite catalog
• space-track-tle-history — 232M historical TLEs (1959-present)
• space-launch-log — Global launch history from GCAT

Pipeline

Source code: juliensimon/space-datasets

Support

If you find this dataset useful, please give it a ❤️ on the dataset page and share feedback in the Community tab! Also consider giving a ⭐️ to the space-datasets repo.

Citation

@dataset{constellation_census,
  author = {Simon, Julien},
  title = {Constellation Census: Daily Satellite Constellation Tracking},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/constellation-census},
  note = {Based on NORAD/18th Space Defense Squadron GP data via CelesTrak (Dr. T.S. Kelso)}
}