Satellites Launched by Owner Country 2025
Key Findings
About This Dataset
Satellites Launched by Owner Country 2025The 15 countries whose organisations owned the most satellites that reached orbit in 2025. A satellite is counted for the country of its owner or operator, not for the country that built it or the country of the rocket that carried it.
How the data is collected
Each satellite in the GCAT launch log carries a State code, which the catalog defines as the country associated with the owner or operator. These codes were tallied for all 4,522 satellites from launches that reached orbit, after removing Starship test vehicles and the entries the catalog marks as outside its standard satellite list.
Background
McDowell's statistics pages call 2025 the biggest year on record for payloads, and give 3,720 satellites for the United States in his country-grouped table. That table sorts owners into broad groups labelled USSR, USA, PRC, EUR and OTHER, so European satellites are pooled there, while this chart keeps each European country separate. His country list also shows that Botswana, Bahrain and the Solomon Islands had their first satellites launched in March and June 2025, and Montenegro in December.
Limits
The grouped table on McDowell's site shows 3,720 for the United States, while this chart, counted satellite by satellite from the launch log, shows 3,716. A satellite built for one country and operated by a company registered in another is counted only for the operator's country. Satellites registered to international organisations, which have their own codes in the catalog, are not credited to any single country.
Owners based in the United States had 3,716 satellites placed in orbit in 2025, or 82.2% of the 4,522 total. Taking away SpaceX's 3,169 Starlink satellites still leaves 547 US-owned satellites, which is more than China's 371. China is a clear second, and Russia is third with 87, less than a quarter of the Chinese figure. Japan's 35 and Italy's 31 put them ahead of France with 26. South Korea (24) and Turkey (22) both placed more satellites than Germany (19). In all, owners from 53 countries had at least one satellite reach orbit during the year, and three more codes in the catalog belong to international organisations.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- Jonathan McDowell, General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (GCAT)
- Coverage
- 15 entities · 2025 · 15 observations
- Measure
- Satellites placed in orbit in 2025, by country of owner
- Last updated
- 16 September 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
- Values use the measure and unit named on this page. Consult the dataset description and cited source for coverage, definitions and any unit conversions. Displayed values may be rounded for readability.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value in 2025.
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Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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How these countries rank across all our charts
Each country's page lists its position in every ranking on ANYSTAT.
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