- Communications satellite
- Military
- AEHF 4 (USA 288)
- NORAD 43651
- 2018-079A
- Geostationary
Current orbit
View on live mapOne orbit takes a day, as long as the Earth takes to turn, so AEHF SV-4 keeps above 68.3° W of the equator and never crosses the sky.
It never rises or sets
AEHF SV-4 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 AEHF SV-4, 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 Brazil LIVE
Where is AEHF SV-4?
At 6:21:41 PM UTC AEHF SV-4 was over Brazil (1.4° S, 68.3° W), 35,847 km up, standing over one longitude of the equator and in sunlight.
What is AEHF SV-4?
A communications satellite in geostationary orbit, in space since Oct 17, 2018.
Can I see AEHF SV-4?
No, not with the naked eye, and it never crosses the sky: AEHF SV-4 stands over 68.3° W of the equator; the dishes and receivers on the ground use its signals instead.
General
- Operator
- US Air Force Military Satellite Communications Wing, AFSMC, LAAFB
- State
- United States of America
- Built by
- Lockheed Martin Space Systems (Sunnyvale)
- What it is
- Communications satellite
- Military
- Yes: a defence organisation flies it
- Launched
- Mass
- about 6.2 t
- Operating
- Yes
- Orbit class
- Geostationary
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
- 6:21 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 6:21 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 1.4° S, 68.3° W
- Altitude
- 35,847 km
- Speed
- 3.07 km/s (11,052 km/h)
- Course
- Stands over 68.3° W
- Light
- In sunlight
- Inclination
- 1.4°
- Orbital period
- 1,436.1 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 1
- This orbit
- 35,493 to 36,082 km
- In view from
- Within 7,950 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 8, 2026, 7:13 AM, 11 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 8, 2026, 7:13 AM, 11 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for AEHF SV-4, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to AEHF SV-4 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
AEHF SV-4 shares its launch, 2018-079, with 75 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AEHF SV-4 | 35,493 to 36,082 km | 1,436 minutes | about 6.2 t | 2018 |
| 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 |
| Hotbird 13F | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 4.5 t | 2022 |
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 8, 2026, 7:13 AM, 11 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "AEHF 4 (USA 288)",
"OBJECT_ID": "2018-079A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-08T07:13:22.778976",
"MEAN_MOTION": 1.00272067,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.006981,
"INCLINATION": 1.4329,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 2.9197,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 354.1505,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 91.2827,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 43651,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 2974,
"BSTAR": 0,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": -0.00000269,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}