The number of currently active satellites orbiting Earth is on the order of 5000. If all those satellites were on the surface of the planet instead, which they are not, each of them would get an area the size of Cuba or Kentucky. The planet is big and space is bigger.

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Some are synced to the rotation of Earth. Motionless to an observer here.

Oh I’m sure someone else on here knows the exact details but here’s my thought….There’s 3 levels of orbit that satellites are positioned in… low earth orbit, medium earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit.

LEO ranges from about 180kms to 2000kms above earth

MEO is from about 2,000kms to 36,000kms above earth

And GEO is 36,000+ kms above.

So when satellites are launched will be put into one of the three levels of orbit above us. From there is down to the complex mathematical equations and timing to launch and aim a satellite to not just a specific orbit but a specific location within that orbit. That’s why when you hear of launches being delayed it’s usually not just for an hour or two. There’s so much that goes on where not only weather plays a factor but in the earth’s rotation relative to where these satellites are to be positioned above us.

Some of these satellites will be in a fixed orbit above us and some will be in a geosynchronous orbit. It’s a very complex and complicated system. When companies are talking hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in equipment, every precaution is taken to avoid a satellite getting rear ended by another lol. But accidents can happen tho.

Hope that helps somewhat and curious to see what the others have to chime in with. Always open to learning and exploring.

Cheers

Yes there are a lot of satellites, but space is also very big. We do try to track them and launch new ones so that they don't interfere with each other, but there is a slight chance of collision. Hopefully that doesn't happen in a bad enough way to inflict Kessler Syndrome.

Imagine a pincushion.

Stick 50 pins in it. And try to make sure none of them touch.

Now take 5 steps from the pincushion and draw a circle around it, and randomly toss 50 pins into the circle and see how many of them touch.

Now take 500 steps away, create a new virtual circle of that size and toss 50 pins into it in random directions.

Inverse square law applies to physical objects just as much as to radiation. At near orbital distances there’s some risk, and since many objects have decaying orbits there’s more risk over time, but space is really big — even within Earth’s gravity well.

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They're all controlled by operators around the world. Its similar to air traffic control but it's not. Every satellite has a set course that is pre planned before launch. So the operators are mostly looking out for the junk.

Hello u/Kris_Luv, your submission "I wonder that there must be a lot of satellites in the space, do they crash or up there also exists a virtual traffic signals ?" has been removed from r/space because:

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