- Communications satellite
- ORION 3
- NORAD 25727
- 1999-024A
- Medium Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the Andaman Sea
Orbit ends over the Arabian Sea
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches Orion 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 Orion 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 the Pacific Ocean LIVE
Where is Orion 3?
At 6:46:44 PM UTC Orion 3 was over the Pacific Ocean (13.2° S, 169.5° E), 2,490 km up, moving at 6.71 km/s and in sunlight.
What is Orion 3?
A communications satellite in medium Earth orbit, in space since May 5, 1999.
Can I see Orion 3?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for Orion 3, and nothing here estimates one; the dishes and receivers on the ground use its signals instead.
General
- Operator
- Loral Orion
- State
- United States of America
- Built by
- Hughes Space and Comms. Co (Hughes Satellite Systems)
- What it is
- Communications satellite
- Launched
- Mass
- about 4.3 t
- Operating
- No: its regular operations have ended
- 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, the launch day, the mass, and whether it is operating. The orbit class is read from its current elements.
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 6:46 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 6:46 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 13.2° S, 169.5° E
- Altitude
- 2,490 km
- Speed
- 6.71 km/s (24,149 km/h)
- Course
- east
- Light
- In sunlight until 8:09 PM UTC
- Inclination
- 19.8°
- Orbital period
- 138.6 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 10.39
- This orbit
- 2,460 to 2,533 km
- In shadow
- 35 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 3,880 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 8, 2026, 5:49 AM, 12 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 8, 2026, 5:49 AM, 12 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Orion 3, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Orion 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.
Beside the others
| Satellite | Typical altitude | Orbital period | Mass | In space since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orion 3 | 2,460 to 2,533 km | 139 minutes | about 4.3 t | 1999 |
| BlueWalker 3 | 443 to 453 km | 94 minutes | about 1.5 t | 2022 |
| 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 |
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 8, 2026, 5:49 AM, 12 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "ORION 3",
"OBJECT_ID": "1999-024A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-08T05:49:48.493632",
"MEAN_MOTION": 10.39161264,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.00414023,
"INCLINATION": 19.8282,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 280.2422,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 133.7075,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 226.6691,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 25727,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 8380,
"BSTAR": 0.00020432432,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 9e-7,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}