juliensimon/ucs-satellite-database
UCS Satellite Database Credit: NASA Part of a dataset collection on Hugging Face. Dataset description The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) Satellite Database is the most comprehensive publicly available database of operational satellites. Updated roughly quarterly, it includes detailed information about each operational satellite: its name, country of registry, operator, purpose, orbital parameters, launch details, and physical characteristics. What… See the full description on the dataset page: https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/ucs-satellite-database.
UCS Satellite Database
<div align="center"> <img src="banner.jpg" alt="An orbital sunrise illuminates the Earth's atmosphere, seen from the ISS" width="400"> <p><em>Credit: NASA</em></p> </div>
Part of a [dataset collection](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/orbital-mechanics-datasets-69c24caca4ab3934c9856994) on Hugging Face.
Dataset description
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) Satellite Database is the most comprehensive publicly available database of operational satellites. Updated roughly quarterly, it includes detailed information about each operational satellite: its name, country of registry, operator, purpose, orbital parameters, launch details, and physical characteristics.
What makes the UCS database uniquely valuable is its focus on the "why" behind each satellite, not just the "where." While NORAD's SATCAT tracks orbital parameters and the TLE catalog provides ephemeris data, the UCS database adds the human layer: who operates each satellite, what it does, who pays for it, and what sector it serves. This makes it the go-to source for policy researchers studying the militarization of space, economists analyzing the satellite communications market, and journalists reporting on the growing commercial space industry.
The database captures the full diversity of the operational satellite population across all orbit regimes. LEO satellites include Earth observation platforms, broadband mega-constellations, and scientific missions. MEO hosts navigation constellations like GPS and Galileo. GEO satellites serve as communications relays, weather sentinels, and early warning platforms. Physical parameters such as launch mass, dry mass, and power output help characterize satellite capability classes, from 1-kg CubeSats to 6,000-kg GEO communications platforms.
This dataset is suitable for tabular classification tasks.
Schema
Quick stats
- 7,560 active satellites
- 69 countries/organizations
- 31 purpose categories
- 668 distinct operators
- Orbit classes: LEO (6,767), GEO (590), MEO (143), Elliptical (59), LEo (1)
Usage
from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/ucs-satellite-database", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/ucs-satellite-database", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()
# Satellites by orbit class
print(df["orbit_class"].value_counts())
# Communications satellites
comms = df[df["purpose"].str.contains("Communications", na=False)]
print(f"{len(comms):,} communications satellites")
# Satellites by country
by_country = df["country_registry"].value_counts().head(10)
print(by_country)
# Orbit class distribution with matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
df["orbit_class"].value_counts().plot.bar()
plt.ylabel("Count")
plt.title("Satellites by Orbit Class")
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()Data source
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/satellite-database
Update schedule
Quarterly (1st of the month at 06:00 UTC) via GitHub Actions.
Related datasets
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About the author
Created by Julien Simon — AI Operating Partner at Fortino Capital. Part of the Space Datasets collection.
Citation
@dataset{ucs_satellite_database,
title = {UCS Satellite Database},
author = {Simon, Julien},
year = {2026},
url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/ucs-satellite-database},
publisher = {Hugging Face},
note = {Derived from Union of Concerned Scientists, https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/satellite-database}
}