- Navigation satellite
- Military
- NTS-3
- NORAD 65160
- 2025-173A
- Medium Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the Pacific Ocean
Orbit ends over the Pacific Ocean
In view from you
Nobody watches NTS 3 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 NTS 3, 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 NTS 3?
At 4:40:55 PM UTC NTS 3 was over the Pacific Ocean (0.3° N, 136.1° E), 35,253 km up, moving at 3.1 km/s and in sunlight.
What is NTS 3?
A navigation satellite in medium Earth orbit, in space since Aug 13, 2025.
Can I see NTS 3?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for NTS 3, and nothing here estimates one; receivers on the ground use its signals instead, whenever it is above their horizon.
General
- Operator
- United States Space Force
- State
- United States of America
- Built by
- Northrop Grumman Space Systems Group (SSG)
- What it is
- Navigation satellite
- Military
- Yes: a defence organisation flies it
- Launched
- Mass
- about 1.3 t
- Operating
- Yes
- 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
- 4:40 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 4:40 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 0.3° N, 136.1° E
- Altitude
- 35,253 km
- Speed
- 3.1 km/s (11,142 km/h)
- Course
- north
- Light
- In sunlight
- Inclination
- 3.6°
- Orbital period
- 1,409.9 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 1.02
- This orbit
- 35,239 to 35,308 km
- In shadow
- None of this orbit
- In view from
- Within 7,930 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 8, 2026, 8:10 AM, 8 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 8, 2026, 8:10 AM, 8 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for NTS 3, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to NTS 3 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, 8:10 AM, 8 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "NTS-3",
"OBJECT_ID": "2025-173A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-08T08:10:32.303424",
"MEAN_MOTION": 1.021343,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.00082729,
"INCLINATION": 3.5955,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 70.3075,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 59.5455,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 174.1425,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 65160,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 148,
"BSTAR": 0,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": -4.6e-7,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}