Some reports suggest that by the end of this decade there could more than 60,000 active satellites in space. Launch by launch, what began with a handful of scientific and military spacecraft has accelerated into a constant flow of objects, publicly and privately owned, placed into different orbital lanes, each serving a variety of purposes.
There is now a diverse collection of satellites spinning around the globe, including communication and weather satellites, navigation satellites and Earth observation technology that takes images of the surface.
