In April 2026, a total of 76 spacecraft concluded their operations, averaging 2.53 devices per day. The largest share in the statistics belonged to SpaceX's Starlink satellites—51 of them were deorbited and burned up in the atmosphere. This was reported by Ixbt.com reports .
Beyond Starlink, devices from various countries also left orbit. These include Russia's Kosmos-1908 and Progress MS-32, China's Jilin-1 Gaofen-03D-14 and Jilin-1 Gaofen-03D-16, as well as satellites belonging to Japan, South Korea, Germany, Thailand, Luxembourg, and the UAE.
One of the most notable devices on the list was Kosmos-1908, launched in 1988. Having orbited Earth for nearly 40 years, this craft concluded its mission in April and burned up in the atmosphere. This situation highlights how active the process of cleaning up space debris and deorbiting old equipment has become.
Overall, April demonstrated how much orbital activity has accelerated. As SpaceX continues to upgrade its Starlink constellation, other nations are also striving to regulate space by removing obsolete technology from orbit.
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