- NORAD 38077
- 2012-006A
- Low Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the Southern Ocean
Orbit ends over the Southern Ocean
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches LARES 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 LARES, 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 to see with the naked eye from anywhere on Earth.
Timeline
- Launch
Launched, on the day GCAT records. Source
Summary
Over Canada LIVE
Where is LARES?
At 5:39:59 PM UTC LARES was over Canada (62.3° N, 132.8° W), 1,462 km up, moving at 7.13 km/s and in sunlight.
What is LARES?
A satellite in low Earth orbit, in space since Feb 13, 2012.
Can I see LARES?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for LARES, and nothing here estimates one.
General
- Operator
- Italian Space Agency
- State
- Italian Republic
- Built by
- OHB CGS S.p.A., Compagnia Generale per lo Spazio
- Launched
- Mass
- 400 kg
- Operating
- Orbit class
- Low Earth orbit
From GCAT, Jonathan McDowell’s general catalogue, licensed CC BY 4.0: the operator, the state, the manufacturer, the launch day, the mass, and whether it is operating. The orbit class is read from its current elements.
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 5:39 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 5:39 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 62.3° N, 132.8° W
- Altitude
- 1,462 km
- Speed
- 7.13 km/s (25,682 km/h)
- Course
- south-east
- Light
- In sunlight until 6:47 PM UTC
- Inclination
- 69.5°
- Orbital period
- 114.7 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 12.55
- This orbit
- 1,433 to 1,451 km
- In shadow
- 35 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 2,980 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 8, 2026, 7:31 AM, 9 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 8, 2026, 7:31 AM, 10 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for LARES, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to LARES 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, 7:31 AM, 9 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "LARES",
"OBJECT_ID": "2012-006A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-08T07:31:18.852960",
"MEAN_MOTION": 12.54932114,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.00114479,
"INCLINATION": 69.4922,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 46.0669,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 266.835,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 93.1366,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 38077,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 67515,
"BSTAR": -0.000028621811,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": -4.3e-7,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}