- Communications satellite
- MOLNIYA 3-31
- NORAD 17328
- 1987-008A
- Highly elliptical orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the Southern Ocean
Orbit ends over the Southern Ocean
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches Molniya-3 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 Molniya-3, 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 too faint for the naked eye. What reaches you from it reaches a dish or an antenna, not an eye.
Timeline
- Launch
Launched, on the day GCAT records. Source
Summary
Over Russia LIVE
Where is Molniya-3?
At 6:31:59 PM UTC Molniya-3 was over Russia (54.1° N, 56.9° E), 26,775 km up, moving at 3.01 km/s and in sunlight.
What is Molniya-3?
A communications satellite in a highly elliptical orbit, in space since Jan 22, 1987.
Can I see Molniya-3?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for Molniya-3, and nothing here estimates one; the dishes and receivers on the ground use its signals instead.
General
- Operator
- Upravleniye Nachalnika Kosmicheskikh Sredstv
- State
- Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
- Built by
- NPO Applied Mechanics
- What it is
- Communications satellite
- Launched
- Mass
- about 1.8 t
- Operating
- Orbit class
- Highly elliptical orbit
From GCAT, Jonathan McDowell’s general catalogue, licensed CC BY 4.0: the operator, the state, the manufacturer, what it is for, the launch day, the mass, and whether it is operating. The orbit class is read from its current elements.
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 6:31 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 6:31 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 54.1° N, 56.9° E
- Altitude
- 26,775 km
- Speed
- 3.01 km/s (10,829 km/h)
- Course
- south
- Light
- In sunlight until 7:49 PM UTC
- Inclination
- 61.9°
- Orbital period
- 717.9 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 2.01
- This orbit
- 813 to 39,546 km
- In shadow
- 42 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 7,680 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 7, 2026, 9:31 PM, 21 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 7, 2026, 9:31 PM, 21 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Molniya-3, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Molniya-3 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
Molniya-3 shares its launch, 1987-008, with one other body the catalogue lists in orbit.
| Body | What it is |
|---|---|
| SL-6 R/B(2) | Rocket body |
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.
Beside the others
| Satellite | Typical altitude | Orbital period | Mass | In space since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Molniya-3 | 813 to 39,546 km | 718 minutes | about 1.8 t | 1987 |
| Hispasat 30W-6 | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 6.1 t | 2018 |
| Amazonas Nexus | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 4.1 t | 2023 |
| ARSAT-1 | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 3 t | 2014 |
| Astra 1N | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 5.3 t | 2011 |
| Hotbird 13F | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 4.5 t | 2022 |
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 7, 2026, 9:31 PM, 21 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "MOLNIYA 3-31",
"OBJECT_ID": "1987-008A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-07T21:31:41.601792",
"MEAN_MOTION": 2.00583732,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.72921398,
"INCLINATION": 61.8778,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 250.502,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 262.2281,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 17.4133,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 17328,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 28805,
"BSTAR": 0.0029043604,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 0.0000061,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}