Over tablets and phones, the tables are best read in landscape (horizontal) screen mode.
Each table displays the artificial objects in chronological order of deployment.
COSPAR ID: Stands for ‘Committee on Space Research Identifier’. It is an international number assigned to man-made objects launched in space. It consists of the launch year, a three-digit incrementing launch number of that year and a letter code to distinguish objects between them. Only successful launches are given a COSPAR ID.
name: Official name of the object. In the case of small objects, their type names are used. A ‘plus’ sign is used when several objects are still fixed together. Information in brackets are either engine names, serials or reference.
type: Object type. In the case of small objects, it is identical to its name.
mission: Official name of the mission with alternate known mission names in brackets.
quantity: Number of objects identified. A question mark is used if no information is available and ‘scattered’ if the object was destroyed (crash, impact, collision or explosion).
mass (kg, upcoming): Dry mass, given in kilogram, of the object as propellant is assumed to be depleted at EOM (mission rules, leaks, fuel tank ruptures, etc.) and in any case not considered as artificial. A dash sign means that the mass is included into that of the main object.
status: Last known condition of the object, see examples below.
| active | object that is still functioning and communicating with the Earth |
| assumed | not confirmed but highly probable |
| crashed | object that was supposed to land but was destroyed on its way down |
| defunct | object that is not active anymore as its energy is now depleted |
| discarded | object that was seperated and abandoned either in space or on a surface |
| EOM | End Of Mission, used only when most or all of the mission goals were achieved |
| hard landing | object that has not achieved a nominal landing but did not crash either |
| impact | object that has slammed into a surface: it was either discarded in altitude (e.g. heatshields), or its goal was to impact (e.g. impactors) or it was intentionally sent to the surface at EOM (e.g. orbiters) |
| incinerated | destroyed during atmospheric entry |
| landed | object that has achieved its goal to land |
| LOS | Loss Of Signal: communications were unexpectedly lost with the object |
| soft landing | object that was not supposed to land but made it intact to the surface (e.g. parachutes) |
location (Apollo tables only): Last known location of the object relative to the Lunar Module Descent Stage. For example, ‘SW of LM’ means South-West from the Lunar Module.
date/epoch (UTC): Date of the last known condition of the object, given in Universal Time. Many historical dates could be displayed for each mission (launch, orbit insertion or landing for instance), but we choose to only retain the day of the last event due to the archaeological purpose of the project.