- Military
- SBIRS GEO 2 (USA 241)
- NORAD 39120
- 2013-011A
- Geostationary
Current orbit
View on live mapOne orbit takes a day, as long as the Earth takes to turn, so SBIRS GEO-2 keeps above 96.8° W of the equator and never crosses the sky.
It never rises or sets
SBIRS GEO-2 turns with the Earth, standing over one longitude of the equator. From anywhere it can be seen at all it is up day and night, in the same direction, so there is no pass to wait for.
No brightness has been published for SBIRS GEO-2, 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 wait for: it never crosses the sky. From the half of the Earth it stands over it keeps the same point day and night, and from the other half it never rises at all.
Timeline
- Launch
Launched, on the day GCAT records. Source
Summary
Over the Pacific Ocean LIVE
Where is SBIRS GEO-2?
At 6:20:27 PM UTC SBIRS GEO-2 was over the Pacific Ocean (0.5° N, 96.8° W), 35,775 km up, standing over one longitude of the equator and in sunlight.
What is SBIRS GEO-2?
A satellite in geostationary orbit, in space since Mar 19, 2013.
Can I see SBIRS GEO-2?
No, not with the naked eye, and it never crosses the sky: SBIRS GEO-2 stands over 96.8° W of the equator.
General
- Operator
- US Air Force Space Command
- State
- United States of America
- Built by
- Lockheed Martin Space Systems (Sunnyvale)
- Military
- Yes: a defence organisation flies it
- Launched
- Mass
- about 4.5 t
- Operating
- Yes
- Orbit class
- Geostationary
From GCAT, Jonathan McDowell’s general catalogue, licensed CC BY 4.0: the operator, the state, the manufacturer, 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
- 6:20 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 6:20 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 0.5° N, 96.8° W
- Altitude
- 35,775 km
- Speed
- 3.08 km/s (11,074 km/h)
- Course
- Stands over 96.8° W
- Light
- In sunlight
- Inclination
- 4.8°
- Orbital period
- 1,436.1 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 1
- This orbit
- 35,777 to 35,799 km
- In view from
- Within 7,940 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 8, 2026, 7:07 AM, 11 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 8, 2026, 7:07 AM, 11 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for SBIRS GEO-2, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to SBIRS GEO-2 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, 7:07 AM, 11 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "SBIRS GEO 2 (USA 241)",
"OBJECT_ID": "2013-011A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-08T07:07:32.406240",
"MEAN_MOTION": 1.00271704,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.00026312,
"INCLINATION": 4.802,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 52.389,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 174.0096,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 191.2031,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 39120,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 4998,
"BSTAR": 0,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": -0.00000139,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}