The week in orbit · 19–25 October 2026 (UTC)
19–25 Oct: 37 military satellites changed orbit, 4 pairs closed in all week, 8 launches (2 military), 7 geostationary moves.
Military satellites that changed orbit
37Confirmed by the next public orbit update, so a change late in the week can arrive up to a day after it.
- 15 changes · 15 satellites
China - 10 changes · 7 satellites
USA - 9 changes · 7 satellites
Russia - 5 changes · 2 satellites
Japan - 2 changes · 2 satellites
South Korea - 2 changes · 1 satellite
Germany - 1 change · 1 satellite
France - 1 change · 1 satellite
UK - 1 change · 1 satellite
India
Biggest move
Closed in all week
4Pairs found closing on 4 or more days, never more than 5% further apart than the day before and at least 10% nearer at the end, with the distance at each day's check. Usually routine: satellites in the same orbit drift past each other.
Geostationary moves
7
Launches
8Re-entries
5- STARLINK-1525 re-entry predicted
- STARLINK-36255 re-entry predicted
- STARLINK-1704 re-entry predicted
- STARLINK-2187 re-entry predicted
- STARLINK-1454 re-entry predicted
Built 26 Oct, 22:00 UTC from the event log: what overhead24 detected that week, counted by fixed rules. Sources: Space-Track.org (USSPACECOM) (orbit data and re-entries); GCAT (J. McDowell, planet4589.org/space/gcat) (owners and military class, CC BY 4.0); Launch Library 2 (The Space Devs) (launches); UCDP (where fighting was recorded, CC BY 4.0). Worked out from public orbit data, accurate to within a few kilometres, and less accurate the older the data is. Not for collision avoidance, navigation or targeting. Satellites pass over every country: being overhead says nothing about what a satellite is doing. Each day in full: the daily brief.