- Communications satellite
- SYNCOM 1
- NORAD 553
- 1963-004A
- Medium Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the Pacific Ocean
Orbit ends over Brazil
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches Syncom 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 Syncom 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 too faint for the naked eye. What reaches you from it reaches a dish or an antenna, not an eye.
Timeline
- Launch
Launched, on the day GCAT records. Source
Summary
Over the Pacific Ocean LIVE
Where is Syncom 1?
At 5:33:36 PM UTC Syncom 1 was over the Pacific Ocean (15.6° S, 75.9° W), 32,954 km up, moving at 3.13 km/s and in sunlight.
What is Syncom 1?
A communications satellite in medium Earth orbit, in space since Feb 14, 1963.
Can I see Syncom 1?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for Syncom 1, and nothing here estimates one; the dishes and receivers on the ground use its signals instead.
General
- Operator
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
- State
- United States of America
- Built by
- Hughes Space and Comms. Co (Hughes Satellite Systems)
- What it is
- Communications satellite
- Launched
- Mass
- 32 kg
- 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, the launch day, the mass, and whether it is operating. The orbit class is read from its current elements.
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 5:33 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 5:33 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 15.6° S, 75.9° W
- Altitude
- 32,954 km
- Speed
- 3.13 km/s (11,282 km/h)
- Course
- north
- Light
- In sunlight until 3:43 AM UTC
- Inclination
- 26.4°
- Orbital period
- 1,236.2 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 1.16
- This orbit
- 28,692 to 34,864 km
- In shadow
- 63 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 7,870 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 7, 2026, 2:43 AM, 1 day old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 7, 2026, 2:43 AM, 1 day old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Syncom 1, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Syncom 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.
Beside the others
| Satellite | Typical altitude | Orbital period | Mass | In space since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Syncom 1 | 28,692 to 34,864 km | 1,236 minutes | 32 kg | 1963 |
| 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 7, 2026, 2:43 AM, 1 day old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "SYNCOM 1",
"OBJECT_ID": "1963-004A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-07T02:43:38.527968",
"MEAN_MOTION": 1.16483556,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.08088065,
"INCLINATION": 26.413,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 269.7401,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 206.0943,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 149.5605,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 553,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 3772,
"BSTAR": 0,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": -0.00000101,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}