- Earth-watching satellite
- ALOS
- NORAD 28931
- 2006-002A
- Low Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the Arctic Ocean
Orbit ends over the Arctic Ocean
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches Daichi 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 Daichi, 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 it is up there for reaches the ground as pictures and measurements, not as a light in the sky.
Timeline
- Launch
Launched, on the day GCAT records. Source
Summary
Over the Arctic Ocean LIVE
Where is Daichi?
At 5:38:58 PM UTC Daichi was over the Arctic Ocean (78.7° N, 179.1° W), 673 km up, moving at 7.53 km/s and in sunlight.
What is Daichi?
A satellite that watches the Earth in low Earth orbit, in space since Jan 24, 2006.
Can I see Daichi?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for Daichi, and nothing here estimates one; what people use is its pictures and measurements of the Earth.
General
- Operator
- Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
- State
- Japan (Nippon), State of
- Built by
- Tsukuba Space Center
- What it is
- Earth-watching satellite
- Launched
- Mass
- about 4 t
- 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, the launch day, the mass, and whether it is operating. The orbit class is read from its current elements.
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 5:38 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 5:38 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 78.7° N, 179.1° W
- Altitude
- 673 km
- Speed
- 7.53 km/s (27,101 km/h)
- Course
- south-west
- Light
- In sunlight until 5:42 PM UTC
- Inclination
- 98.2°
- Orbital period
- 97.9 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 14.7
- This orbit
- 657 to 658 km
- In shadow
- 29 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 1,890 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 7, 2026, 3:04 PM, 1 day old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 7, 2026, 3:04 PM, 1 day old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Daichi, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Daichi 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
Daichi shares its launch, 2006-002, with 3 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.
Beside the others
| Satellite | Typical altitude | Orbital period | Mass | In space since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daichi | 657 to 658 km | 98 minutes | about 4 t | 2006 |
| SMAP | 681 to 683 km | 98 minutes | 944 kg | 2015 |
| ALOS-2 | 630 to 632 km | 97 minutes | about 2.1 t | 2014 |
| Aqua | 685 to 687 km | 98 minutes | about 2.9 t | 2002 |
| Terra | 688 to 691 km | 99 minutes | about 5.2 t | 1999 |
| SAOCOM 1A | 622 to 624 km | 97 minutes | about 3 t | 2018 |
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 7, 2026, 3:04 PM, 1 day old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "ALOS",
"OBJECT_ID": "2006-002A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-07T15:04:24.698496",
"MEAN_MOTION": 14.70323208,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.00007166,
"INCLINATION": 98.1526,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 266.9083,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 102.5186,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 257.61,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 28931,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 10917,
"BSTAR": 0.00023580334,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 0.00001374,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}