SATELLITES

0 active satellites are in orbit around the Earth as this page loads. The globe below is lit for this minute — the line between day and night is where it actually falls — and it opens on the ground beneath you.

Orbits not loaded.

These orbits are Infinity days old. They are normally replaced every day. A satellite in low orbit drifts by a kilometre or so for each day since its elements were fitted, so what is drawn below is roughly Infinity km from where these satellites actually are — near enough to see the shape of what is up there, and not near enough to point at one.

Loading orbits…

0 in view. Drag to turn, scroll to zoom, point at a satellite to name it. Shift-click a category to show it on its own.

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WHAT IS UP THERE

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  • Space stations0
  • Starlink0
  • Other broadband0
  • Navigation0
  • Communications0
  • Earth observation0
  • Science0
  • Amateur and CubeSat0
  • Unclassified0
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WHERE THESE POSITIONS COME FROM

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Each satellite is published as a set of orbital elements fitted to radar and optical tracking, together with the instant those elements describe. They are not positions: they are the input to a specific model of how an orbit decays under drag and the Earth’s equatorial bulge, and only that model returns the satellite to where it was seen. Your browser runs it, once for every satellite, several times a second.

The accuracy that model is capable of is about a kilometre at the moment an element set was fitted, degrading by a kilometre or so a day after it. The catalogue here is refreshed daily. That is close enough to say which satellite is passing over a country and not close enough to point a telescope, and nothing on this page should be used to predict a close approach.

Only satellites in orbit around the Earth are shown. Spacecraft on their way to the Moon or beyond it are tracked in a different way entirely and are not in this picture.

The colours below the globe mark the nine categories, and they are an aid rather than an answer: nine hues on one screen is more than colour alone can keep apart, particularly for a colour-blind reader and particularly at a pixel and a half over a photograph of the Earth. So the categories can be switched off, and shift-clicking one shows it on its own — which is the reliable way to see where a constellation is. Anything you point at is named in words.

Elements and catalogue data from CelesTrak, which redistributes the United States Space Force’s public orbital data. The Earth is drawn from NASA imagery; the same maps are used on the Earth’s own page.