- Space telescope
- Chandra
- NORAD 25867
- 1999-040B
- Highly elliptical orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the Atlantic Ocean
Orbit ends over the Indian Ocean
In view from you
Nobody watches Chandra 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, Chandra 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 far too faint for the naked eye, and catching it would take a telescope driven to follow a point crossing the sky in minutes. What is worth looking at is what it sends back.
Timeline
- Launch
Launched on Space Shuttle from Cape Canaveral. Source
Summary
Over the Atlantic Ocean LIVE
Where is Chandra?
At 8:06:11 PM UTC Chandra was over the Atlantic Ocean (29° S, 16° E), 28,708 km up, moving at 4.22 km/s and in sunlight.
What is Chandra?
A space telescope in a highly elliptical orbit, in space since Jul 23, 1999.
Can I see Chandra?
No, not with the naked eye: even at its closest, Chandra is too faint to see from anywhere on Earth; what people use is what it sees, which its operator publishes.
General
- Launched
- Main mirror
- 1.2 m across
- Light it sees
- X-rays, from 0.1 to 10 keV
- Operator
- NASA, flown for it by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
- Mass
- about 4.8 t
- Typical altitude
- 12,186 to 136,630 km
- Speed
- about 0.8 to 6.17 km/s (2,900 to 22,200 km/h)
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 8:06 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 8:06 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 29° S, 16° E
- Altitude
- 28,708 km
- Speed
- 4.22 km/s (15,185 km/h)
- Course
- south
- Light
- In sunlight
- Inclination
- 57.4°
- Orbital period
- 3,809.7 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 0.38
- This orbit
- 12,286 to 136,561 km
- In view from
- Within 7,750 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Sep 18, 2026, 10:24 PM, 0 seconds old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Sep 18, 2026, 10:24 PM, 0 seconds old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Chandra, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- Close approaches to Chandra are not available right now. Try again in a few minutes.
Beside the others
| Satellite | Light it sees | Typical altitude | Main mirror | Mass | In space since |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chandra | X-rays, from 0.1 to 10 keV | 12,186 to 136,630 km | 1.2 m | about 4.8 t | 1999 |
| XMM-Newton | X-rays, from 0.15 to 12 keV, and visible and ultraviolet light | 29,443 to 91,682 km | 0.7 m | about 3.8 t | 1999 |
| Cheops | Visible and near-infrared light, from 0.33 to 1.1 µm | 679 to 694 km | 0.3 m | 280 kg | 2019 |
| Fermi | Gamma rays, from 8 keV to more than 300 GeV | 488 to 498 km | — | about 4.3 t | 2008 |
| Hubble | Ultraviolet, visible and infrared light | 465 to 480 km | 2.4 m | about 12.2 t | 1990 |
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Sep 18, 2026, 10:24 PM, 0 seconds old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "CXO",
"OBJECT_ID": "1999-040B",
"EPOCH": "2026-09-18T22:24:53.215200",
"MEAN_MOTION": 0.37798297,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.76901755,
"INCLINATION": 57.4406,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 114.2349,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 309.3586,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 0.3765,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 25867,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 1767,
"BSTAR": 0,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 0.00000876,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}