News of the satellites and constellations in Earth orbit: reboosts, manoeuvres, new fleets and milestones, told with our own tracking data.
Satellites and constellations
ESA's FLEX and Sentinel-3A now see the same ground seconds apart. Orbit records show the pair in tandem since 28 October; ESA has yet to announce it.
See them on the live map· 5 min read
Satellites and constellations
A month after launch, Google's Project Suncatcher prototype ran the Gemma 4 model in orbit and sent back a poem. Heat and radiation tests come next.
Track Project Suncatcher M1 on the live map· 4 min read
Satellites and constellations
Russian cargo ships can no longer unload through it and will have to dock twice, Russianspaceweb reports. NASA and Roscosmos have not confirmed it.
Track the ISS on the live map· 5 min read
Satellites and constellations
A viral post claims a Starlink alert held ICEYE-X36 still so Cosmos 2612 could close in. The orbit data shows a routine pass and no sign it was held back.
See them on the live map· 14 min read
Satellites and constellations
Anil Menon and Joshua Kutryk are to fit the last two of eight arrays that together, NASA says, take the ISS from 160 kW of capacity to about 215 kW.
Track the ISS on the live map· 5 min read
Satellites and constellations
Two burns on 15 and 22 October cut Hera's speed towards Didymos to 20 m/s. Three small manoeuvres next week set up its arrival, planned for 4 November.
· 9 min read
Satellites and constellations
Cosmos 2612 raised its orbit by about 2.3 km on 18 October, and by 12:00 UTC on 19 October it was some 360 km behind ICEYE-X36, falling further back.
Track Cosmos 2612 and ICEYE-X36 on the live map· 8 min read
Satellites and constellations
Cosmos 2612 now shares the orbital plane of ICEYE-X36, about 5 km behind it on 18 October; LeoLabs, which tracks both, says the move appears deliberate.
Track Cosmos 2612 and ICEYE-X36 on the live map· 6 min read
Satellites and constellations
Europe's third Sentinel-3 has imaged Italy, the Arctic and the Caribbean and measured sea and ice heights, with about five months of checks ahead.
Track Sentinel-3C and Sentinel-3A on the live map· 4 min read
Satellites and constellations
The Space Force says the last two DSP satellites retired in September; in our data, two now circle some 350 km above the geostationary ring.
Track NORAD 26356 and NORAD 28158 on the live map· 3 min read
Satellites and constellations
A week after launch, 22 of the 26 hold near 295 km. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell reads it as a pause to shift their orbital plane before they climb on.
Track NORAD 100880 and NORAD 100870 on the live map· 5 min read
Satellites and constellations
ESA and China's Smile was cleared for science on 23 September: its aurora camera is filming, but its X-ray camera sees too much stray light facing Earth.
Track NORAD 69123 on the live map· 6 min read
Satellites and constellations
UT Austin and Stanford researchers link brief GPS drops on 75 days since 2019 to Russia's EKS satellites, and caught one, Cosmos 2546, in the act.
See them on the live map· 5 min read
Satellites and constellations
The Air Force Secretary and the Space Force chief both said it on 14 and 15 September, without saying what the weapons are, how many, or where.
· 3 min read
Satellites and constellations
Five Galileo satellites encrypted part of their signal on 16 September: the first civil fix with ranging authenticated, not just the navigation message.
See them on the live map· 5 min read
Satellites and constellations
The Russian cargo ship reached the ISS on 19 September, a week later than first planned, and took the port Progress 94 left on 7 September.
Track the ISS on the live map· 2 min read
