Low Earth orbit

The band of orbits roughly 200 to 2,000 km above the surface, where a spacecraft circles the Earth in about 90 minutes.

Why it matters

Almost everything humans do in space happens here, for one reason: it is the cheapest place to reach, and the physics of everything else follows from that. Low altitude means short radio round-trips, which is why broadband constellations live here rather than at geostationary altitude. It also means residual atmosphere: satellites lose altitude continuously and either burn propellant to stay up or re-enter within years, which is what keeps this band from filling with derelicts forever.

In our data

Low Earth orbit is the single most common destination in our Launch Tracker - 144 of 350 missions, more than three times the next entry. Add the orbits that are technically subsets or neighbours, such as polar (47) and sun-synchronous (36), and the low-altitude band accounts for the clear majority of everything launched.

Missions we track

2026-09-30 Falcon 9 Block 5 | Crew-13 To Be Determined
2026-10-31 Falcon 9 Block 5 | Dragon CRS-2 SpX-35 To Be Determined
2026-12-31 Long March 2F/G | Shenzhou 24 To Be Determined

Where we use it

Not to be confused with

Medium Earth orbit, home to navigation constellations like GPS and Galileo, and geostationary orbit far above both. The difference is not academic: altitude sets latency, coverage per satellite and how long a dead spacecraft lingers before it comes down.