- Navigation satellite
- Military
- BEIDOU 2
- NORAD 31115
- 2007-011A
- Medium Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the South China Sea
Orbit ends over the Pacific Ocean
In view from you
Nobody watches Beidou DW 1 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 Beidou DW 1, 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 the Pacific Ocean LIVE
Where is Beidou DW 1?
At 4:56:08 PM UTC Beidou DW 1 was over the Pacific Ocean (7.7° S, 93.7° W), 22,446 km up, moving at 3.72 km/s and in sunlight.
What is Beidou DW 1?
A navigation satellite in medium Earth orbit, in space since Apr 13, 2007.
Can I see Beidou DW 1?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for Beidou DW 1, and nothing here estimates one; receivers on the ground use its signals instead, whenever it is above their horizon.
General
- Operator
- China National Space Administration
- State
- China, People's Republic of
- Built by
- Chinese Academy of Space Technology, Beijing (CASC 5th Acad)
- What it is
- Navigation satellite
- Military
- Yes: a defence organisation flies it
- Launched
- Mass
- about 2.3 t
- 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
- 4:56 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 4:56 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 7.7° S, 93.7° W
- Altitude
- 22,446 km
- Speed
- 3.72 km/s (13,388 km/h)
- Course
- north
- Light
- In sunlight
- Inclination
- 50.9°
- Orbital period
- 812 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 1.77
- This orbit
- 22,444 to 22,461 km
- In shadow
- None of this orbit
- In view from
- Within 7,500 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 4, 2026, 5:03 AM, 4 days old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 4, 2026, 5:03 AM, 4 days old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Beidou DW 1, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Beidou DW 1 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 4, 2026, 5:03 AM, 4 days old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "BEIDOU 2",
"OBJECT_ID": "2007-011A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-04T05:03:02.435040",
"MEAN_MOTION": 1.77349245,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.0003034,
"INCLINATION": 50.8879,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 214.6282,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 13.9912,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 346.0544,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 31115,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 7863,
"BSTAR": 0,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": -2.5e-7,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}