- Navigation satellite
- Military
- TRANSIT 4A
- NORAD 116
- 1961-015A
- Low Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the Pacific Ocean
Orbit ends over the Celebes Sea
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches Transit IV-A go over, but a receiver still asks whether it is above the horizon. Say where you are and this card answers.
Your position is rounded to about a kilometre and sent only to the Orbinauts API, to find the pass.
No brightness has been published for Transit IV-A, so it is not a naked-eye satellite and no city page carries pass times for it. Nothing here estimates one.
Seeing it
There is nothing to go outside for: it is far too high and too faint for the naked eye. What you notice of it is a position fix, and the card above says whether it is above your horizon to give you one.
Timeline
- Launch
Launched, on the day GCAT records. Source
Summary
Over Sweden LIVE
Where is Transit IV-A?
At 5:25:46 PM UTC Transit IV-A was over Sweden (65.7° N, 18.4° E), 935 km up, moving at 7.39 km/s and in sunlight.
What is Transit IV-A?
A navigation satellite in low Earth orbit, in space since Jun 29, 1961.
Can I see Transit IV-A?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for Transit IV-A, and nothing here estimates one; receivers on the ground use its signals instead, whenever it is above their horizon.
General
- Operator
- Bureau of Naval Weapons, US Navy
- State
- United States of America
- Built by
- JHU-Applied Physics Lab
- What it is
- Navigation satellite
- Military
- Yes: a defence organisation flies it
- Launched
- Mass
- 78 kg
- Operating
- Orbit class
- Low Earth orbit
From GCAT, Jonathan McDowell’s general catalogue, licensed CC BY 4.0: the operator, the state, the manufacturer, what it is for, that a defence organisation flies it, the launch day, the mass, and whether it is operating. The orbit class is read from its current elements.
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 5:25 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 5:25 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 65.7° N, 18.4° E
- Altitude
- 935 km
- Speed
- 7.39 km/s (26,600 km/h)
- Course
- east
- Light
- In sunlight until 5:28 PM UTC
- Inclination
- 66.8°
- Orbital period
- 103.4 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 13.92
- This orbit
- 864 to 973 km
- In shadow
- 33 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 2,320 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 8, 2026, 6:41 AM, 10 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 8, 2026, 6:41 AM, 10 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Transit IV-A, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Transit IV-A has been reported publicly in the past thirty days.
From Space-Track’s public conjunction messages; the latest report was issued Nov 8, 2026, 1:11 PM, 3 hours old. Only approaches serious enough to be reported publicly are listed: within three days and, for two bodies near the Earth, closer than a kilometre with a chance of a collision above 1 in 10,000, the level at which NASA moves the ISS.
Launched with
Transit IV-A shares its launch, 1961-015, with 179 other bodies the catalogue lists in orbit.
Read from the international designators of the US catalogue: the year and the launch number every piece of one launch shares. A body that has come down is no longer listed.
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 8, 2026, 6:41 AM, 10 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "TRANSIT 4A",
"OBJECT_ID": "1961-015A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-08T06:41:21.050304",
"MEAN_MOTION": 13.92351621,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.00748107,
"INCLINATION": 66.8093,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 258.2319,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 177.1537,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 182.9984,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 116,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 31676,
"BSTAR": 0.000081903647,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 3.1e-7,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}