Time Series Modeling of Lifespans of Earth Satellites

Numerous countries have satellites for various needs like communication, weather forecasting and security. The first satellite was launched into space in 1957. Thousands of satellites' lifetimes have already ended but many of these satellites are still in orbit although no longer functional. Nevertheless, satellite technology is improving compared with the past. We seek to understand trends in improvements to satellites related to their lifespans better, using a new dataset that has not been available before for this article, as part of a project that also analyzes other relevant data sets. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the satellite data with data visualization tools and find some significant patterns in the data. The paper explores the average lifespan of satellites over the period of artificial satellites, 1957 to present.