- Navigation satellite
- Military
- NAVSTAR 39 (USA 128)
- NORAD 24320
- 1996-056A
- Medium Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over Australia
Orbit ends over Brazil
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches GPS IIA-18 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 GPS IIA-18, 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 Australia LIVE
Where is GPS IIA-18?
At 4:54:30 PM UTC GPS IIA-18 was over Australia (38.4° S, 145.8° E), 21,433 km up, moving at 3.79 km/s and in sunlight.
What is GPS IIA-18?
A navigation satellite in medium Earth orbit, in space since Sep 12, 1996.
Can I see GPS IIA-18?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for GPS IIA-18, and nothing here estimates one; receivers on the ground use its signals instead, whenever it is above their horizon.
General
- Operator
- US Air Force Space and Missile Center
- State
- United States of America
- Built by
- Rockwell/Seal Beach
- What it is
- Navigation satellite
- Military
- Yes: a defence organisation flies it
- Launched
- Mass
- 860 kg
- Operating
- Orbit class
- Medium 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
- 4:54 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 4:54 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 38.4° S, 145.8° E
- Altitude
- 21,433 km
- Speed
- 3.79 km/s (13,651 km/h)
- Course
- south-east
- Light
- In sunlight until 2:53 AM UTC
- Inclination
- 53.7°
- Orbital period
- 772.1 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 1.86
- This orbit
- 21,419 to 21,584 km
- In shadow
- 54 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 7,450 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 8, 2026, 2:17 AM, 14 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 8, 2026, 2:17 AM, 14 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for GPS IIA-18, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to GPS IIA-18 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.
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 8, 2026, 2:17 AM, 14 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "NAVSTAR 39 (USA 128)",
"OBJECT_ID": "1996-056A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-08T02:17:32.489952",
"MEAN_MOTION": 1.86498939,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.00296891,
"INCLINATION": 53.6523,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 231.7439,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 219.4456,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 321.9603,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 24320,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 21319,
"BSTAR": 0,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": -2.5e-7,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}