Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 18

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Link to this page

https://orbinauts.com/satellites/goes-18

  • Earth-watching satellite
  • GOES-18
  • NORAD 51850
  • 2022-021A
  • Geostationary

Current orbit

Where GOES-18 is on the world map, with the orbit it is flying
View on live map

One orbit takes a day, as long as the Earth takes to turn, so GOES-18 keeps above 137° W of the equator and never crosses the sky.

Past trackNext orbits

It never rises or sets

GOES-18 turns with the Earth, standing over one longitude of the equator. From anywhere it can be seen at all it is up day and night, in the same direction, so there is no pass to wait for.

No brightness has been published for GOES-18, 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 wait for: it never crosses the sky. From the half of the Earth it stands over it keeps the same point day and night, and from the other half it never rises at all.

Timeline

  1. Launch

    Launched on Atlas V from Cape Canaveral. Source

Summary

Over the Pacific Ocean LIVE

Where is GOES-18?

At 3:03:06 AM UTC GOES-18 was over the Pacific Ocean (0° S, 137° W), 35,783 km up, standing over one longitude of the equator and in sunlight.

What is GOES-18?

A satellite that watches the Earth in geostationary orbit, in space since Mar 1, 2022.

Can I see GOES-18?

No, not with the naked eye, and it never crosses the sky: GOES-18 stands over 137° W of the equator; what people use is its pictures and measurements of the Earth.

General

The GOES-T weather satellite, later named GOES-18, standing on its stand in a clean room in Titusville, Florida, in January 2022, its solar array folded against its side.
Photograph: NASA / Ben Smegelsky (public domain)
Launched
Rocket
Atlas V
Watches
The Pacific, from the western Americas to New Zealand: clouds, storms, lightning, wildfires and the Sun
Full picture of the Earth
Every 10 minutes
Operator
NOAA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Took over from
GOES-17, as GOES West, on Jan 4, 2023
Mass
about 5.2 t
Typical altitude
35,786 to 35,786 km
Speed
about 3.07 km/s (11,100 km/h)

Latest orbital data

Position received
3:03 AM UTC
Station time (UTC)
3:03 AM UTC
Latitude / longitude
0° S, 137° W
Altitude
35,783 km
Speed
3.08 km/s (11,070 km/h)
Course
Stands over 137° W
Light
In sunlight
Inclination
0°
Orbital period
1,436.1 minutes
Orbits per day
1
This orbit
35,784 to 35,791 km
In view from
Within 7,940 km of the point below it
Elements epoch
Nov 2, 2026, 2:04 AM, 1 day old
Source
Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 2, 2026, 2:04 AM, 1 day old.

No operator publishes an ephemeris for GOES-18, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.

In orbit

Close approaches
No close approach to GOES-18 has been reported publicly in the past thirty days.

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.

See every close approach reported in orbit.

The GOES programme

Orbinauts also tracks:

Data and API

The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 2, 2026, 2:04 AM, 1 day old.

{
  "OBJECT_NAME": "GOES 18",
  "OBJECT_ID": "2022-021A",
  "EPOCH": "2026-11-02T02:04:32.361024",
  "MEAN_MOTION": 1.00272865,
  "ECCENTRICITY": 0.0000754,
  "INCLINATION": 0.0433,
  "RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 64.6827,
  "ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 220.8144,
  "MEAN_ANOMALY": 10.0344,
  "EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
  "CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
  "NORAD_CAT_ID": 51850,
  "ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
  "REV_AT_EPOCH": 797,
  "BSTAR": 0,
  "MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 8.9e-7,
  "MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}