- Earth-watching satellite
- NORAD 38771
- 2012-049A
- Low Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over Argentina
Orbit ends over the Pacific Ocean
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches Metop-B 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, Metop-B 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. What it is up there for reaches the ground as pictures and measurements, not as a light in the sky.
Altitude
One reading a day, worked out from the elements Space-Track publishes.
Timeline
- Launch
Launched on Soyuz from Baikonur. Source
Summary
Over the Southern Ocean LIVE
Where is Metop-B?
At 3:02:57 AM UTC Metop-B was over the Southern Ocean (64.8° S, 73.7° W), 844 km up, moving at 7.43 km/s and in sunlight.
What is Metop-B?
A satellite that watches the Earth in low Earth orbit, in space since Sep 17, 2012.
Can I see Metop-B?
No, not with the naked eye: even at its closest, Metop-B is too faint to see from anywhere on Earth; what people use is its pictures and measurements of the Earth.
General
- Launched
- Rocket
- Soyuz
- Watches
- The whole Earth: temperature and humidity through the atmosphere, winds over the oceans, and the air’s ozone
- Full picture of the Earth
- Twice a day, over every point of the Earth
- Operator
- EUMETSAT, Europe’s meteorological satellite agency
- Took over from
- Metop-A, as the primary Metop satellite, on Apr 24, 2013
- Mass
- about 4.1 t
- Typical altitude
- 818 to 823 km
- Speed
- about 7.44 km/s (26,800 km/h)
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 3:02 AM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 3:02 AM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 64.8° S, 73.7° W
- Altitude
- 844 km
- Speed
- 7.43 km/s (26,748 km/h)
- Course
- north
- Light
- In sunlight until 3:10 AM UTC
- Inclination
- 98.6°
- Orbital period
- 101.3 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 14.21
- This orbit
- 817 to 819 km
- In shadow
- 28 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 2,180 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 2, 2026, 10:27 AM, 16 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 2, 2026, 10:27 AM, 16 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Metop-B, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Metop-B has been reported publicly in the past thirty days.
- Losing to drag
- Metop-B 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.
The Metop programme
Orbinauts also tracks:
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 2, 2026, 10:27 AM, 16 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "METOP-B",
"OBJECT_ID": "2012-049A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-02T10:27:58.436928",
"MEAN_MOTION": 14.21469099,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.0001437,
"INCLINATION": 98.6332,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 355.0583,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 329.3093,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 30.8,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 38771,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 73290,
"BSTAR": 0.000036851,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 3.7e-7,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}