- Pioneer
- NORAD 424
- 1962-049A
- Low 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 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
One reading a day, worked out from the elements Space-Track publishes.
Timeline
- Launch
Launched on Thor-Agena B from Vandenberg. Source
- End of mission
Its mission ended.
Summary
Over Botswana LIVE
Where is Alouette 1?
At 3:04:25 AM UTC Alouette 1 was over Botswana (21.6° S, 26.6° E), 1,012 km up, moving at 7.34 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
- Launched
- Ended
- Rocket
- Thor-Agena B
- 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
- 3:04 AM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 3:04 AM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 21.6° S, 26.6° E
- Altitude
- 1,012 km
- Speed
- 7.34 km/s (26,435 km/h)
- Course
- north
- Light
- In sunlight
- Inclination
- 80.5°
- Orbital period
- 105.1 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 13.7
- This orbit
- 982 to 1,015 km
- In shadow
- None of this orbit
- In view from
- Within 2,420 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 2, 2026, 8:10 PM, 6 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 2, 2026, 8:10 PM, 6 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Alouette 1, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Alouette 1 has been reported publicly in the past thirty days.
- Losing to drag
- Alouette 1 is falling less than a metre a day, read from the last 48 days of samples.
From Space-Track’s public conjunction messages; the latest report was issued Nov 2, 2026, 1:53 PM, 13 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 2, 2026, 8:10 PM, 6 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "ALOUETTE 1 (S-27)",
"OBJECT_ID": "1962-049A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-02T20:10:02.307936",
"MEAN_MOTION": 13.69608748,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.0022484,
"INCLINATION": 80.4637,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 119.1911,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 238.4977,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 121.3972,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 424,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 20009,
"BSTAR": 0.000088855,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 8.6e-7,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}