- Communications satellite
- TVSAT 1
- NORAD 18570
- 1987-095A
- Inclined geosynchronous
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the South China Sea
Orbit ends over the Gulf of Thailand
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches TV-SAT 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 TV-SAT, 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 the Gulf of Thailand LIVE
Where is TV-SAT?
At 5:36:58 PM UTC TV-SAT was over the Gulf of Thailand (11.1° N, 101.5° E), 36,015 km up, moving at 3.07 km/s and in sunlight.
What is TV-SAT?
A communications satellite in an inclined geosynchronous orbit, in space since Nov 21, 1987.
Can I see TV-SAT?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for TV-SAT, and nothing here estimates one; the dishes and receivers on the ground use its signals instead.
General
- Operator
- DBP Telecom
- State
- Germany, Federal Republic of
- Built by
- MBB
- What it is
- Communications satellite
- Launched
- Mass
- about 2.1 t
- Operating
- No: its regular operations have ended
- Orbit class
- Inclined geosynchronous
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
- 5:36 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 5:36 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 11.1° N, 101.5° E
- Altitude
- 36,015 km
- Speed
- 3.07 km/s (11,059 km/h)
- Course
- north-east
- Light
- In sunlight until 4:54 PM UTC
- Inclination
- 11.1°
- Orbital period
- 1,455.7 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 0.99
- This orbit
- 35,917 to 36,423 km
- In shadow
- 51 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 7,950 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Oct 29, 2026, 9:09 AM, 10 days old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Oct 29, 2026, 9:09 AM, 10 days old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for TV-SAT, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to TV-SAT 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.
Beside the others
| Satellite | Typical altitude | Orbital period | Mass | In space since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TV-SAT | 35,917 to 36,423 km | 1,456 minutes | about 2.1 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 Oct 29, 2026, 9:09 AM, 10 days old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "TVSAT 1",
"OBJECT_ID": "1987-095A",
"EPOCH": "2026-10-29T09:09:38.763360",
"MEAN_MOTION": 0.9892294,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.0059477,
"INCLINATION": 11.0765,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 327.2092,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 139.1291,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 221.2523,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 18570,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 13016,
"BSTAR": 0,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": -0.00000287,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}