Alouette 1

LIVE

Link to this page

https://orbinauts.com/satellites/alouette-1

  • Pioneer
  • NORAD 424
  • 1962-049A
  • Low Earth orbit

Current orbit

Where Alouette 1 is on the world map, with the orbit it is flying
View on live map

Orbit began over the Pacific Ocean

Orbit ends over the Pacific Ocean

Sunlit since

Enters the Earth’s shadow

Past trackNext orbits

In view from you

Nobody watches Alouette 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.

Even at its closest, Alouette 1 is too faint to see with the naked eye from anywhere on Earth, so no city page carries pass times for it.

Seeing it

There is nothing to go outside for: it is too faint for the naked eye. It is still up there all the same, going round as it has since it was launched.

Altitude

980 km990 km1,000 km1,010 km1,020 km
Alouette 1, one reading a day from Sep 16, 2026 to Sep 18, 2026. The band runs from the lowest point of the orbit to the highest; the line is the middle of it.

One reading a day, worked out from the elements Space-Track publishes.

Timeline

  1. Launch

    Launched on Thrust Augmented Thor-Agena B from Vandenberg. Source

  2. End of mission

    Its mission ended.

Summary

Over the Pacific Ocean LIVE

Where is Alouette 1?

At 8:07:29 PM UTC Alouette 1 was over the Pacific Ocean (8.9° S, 137.4° W), 988 km up, moving at 7.37 km/s and in sunlight.

What is Alouette 1?

One of the pioneers of spaceflight in low Earth orbit, in space since Sep 29, 1962; its mission ended in 1972.

Can I see Alouette 1?

No, not with the naked eye: even at its closest, Alouette 1 is too faint to see from anywhere on Earth; what it is now is a relic of the first years in orbit.

General

An exhibition unit of the Alouette satellite, shown by NASA in 1964: a faceted, flattened ball tiled with solar cells, its short antennas raised, on a wheeled stand.
Photograph: NASA (public domain)
Launched
Ended
Remembered for
Being Canada’s first satellite, the first built by a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States, which sounded the ionosphere from above for ten years
Operator
Canada’s Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment, which designed and built it; NASA launched it
Size
a flattened sphere 1.07 m across
Mass
145.7 kg
Typical altitude
984 to 1,018 km
Speed
about 7.35 km/s (26,500 km/h)

Latest orbital data

Position received
8:07 PM UTC
Station time (UTC)
8:07 PM UTC
Latitude / longitude
8.9° S, 137.4° W
Altitude
988 km
Speed
7.37 km/s (26,518 km/h)
Course
north
Light
In sunlight until 8:46 PM UTC
Inclination
80.5°
Orbital period
105.1 minutes
Orbits per day
13.7
This orbit
981 to 1,015 km
In shadow
35 minutes of each orbit
In view from
Within 2,390 km of the point below it
Elements epoch
Sep 18, 2026, 4:23 AM, 15 hours old
Source
Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Sep 18, 2026, 4:23 AM, 15 hours old.

No operator publishes an ephemeris for Alouette 1, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.

In orbit

Close approaches
Close approaches to Alouette 1 are not available right now. Try again in a few minutes.
Losing to drag
Alouette 1 is falling less than a metre a day, read from the last 2 days of samples.

See every close approach reported in orbit.

Data and API

The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Sep 18, 2026, 4:23 AM, 15 hours old.

{
  "OBJECT_NAME": "ALOUETTE 1 (S-27)",
  "OBJECT_ID": "1962-049A",
  "EPOCH": "2026-09-18T04:23:21.190560",
  "MEAN_MOTION": 13.69603021,
  "ECCENTRICITY": 0.00233467,
  "INCLINATION": 80.4693,
  "RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 164.3705,
  "ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 359.1112,
  "MEAN_ANOMALY": 0.9988,
  "EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
  "CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
  "NORAD_CAT_ID": 424,
  "ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
  "REV_AT_EPOCH": 19384,
  "BSTAR": 0.000067246402,
  "MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 6.8e-7,
  "MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}