- Earth-watching satellite
- NORAD 65159
- 2025-172A
- Low Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over Greenland
Orbit ends over Canada
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches MetOp-SG A1 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.
No brightness has been published for MetOp-SG A1, 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 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 Ariane-62 from Kourou. Source
Summary
Over the Ross Sea LIVE
Where is MetOp-SG A1?
At 8:07:30 PM UTC MetOp-SG A1 was over the Ross Sea (75.5° S, 164.2° E), 848 km up, moving at 7.43 km/s and in sunlight.
What is MetOp-SG A1?
A satellite that watches the Earth in low Earth orbit, in space since Aug 13, 2025.
Can I see MetOp-SG A1?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for MetOp-SG A1, and nothing here estimates one; what people use is its pictures and measurements of the Earth.
General
- Launched
- Watches
- The whole Earth: temperature and humidity through the atmosphere, clouds and aerosols, and with Copernicus Sentinel-5 the gases that affect air quality
- Full picture of the Earth
- Every day, and more often near the poles
- Operator
- EUMETSAT, Europe’s meteorological satellite agency, with Sentinel-5 for the EU’s Copernicus programme
- Role
- Still in commissioning, its instruments entering service one by one since May 2026, before it takes over as the lead satellite of Europe’s polar system
- Mass
- about 4 t
- Typical altitude
- 820 to 821 km
- Speed
- about 7.44 km/s (26,800 km/h)
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 8:07 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 8:07 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 75.5° S, 164.2° E
- Altitude
- 848 km
- Speed
- 7.43 km/s (26,737 km/h)
- Course
- south-west
- Light
- In sunlight until 8:18 PM UTC
- Inclination
- 98.7°
- Orbital period
- 101.3 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 14.22
- This orbit
- 817 to 818 km
- In shadow
- 31 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 2,180 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Sep 17, 2026, 4:03 AM, 1 day old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Sep 17, 2026, 4:03 AM, 1 day old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for MetOp-SG A1, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- Close approaches to MetOp-SG A1 are not available right now. Try again in a few minutes.
- Losing to drag
- MetOp-SG A1 is falling less than a metre a day, read from the last 2 days of samples.
The MetOp-SG programme
Orbinauts tracks no other satellite of the programme.
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Sep 17, 2026, 4:03 AM, 1 day old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "METOP SG-A",
"OBJECT_ID": "2025-172A",
"EPOCH": "2026-09-17T04:03:36.644832",
"MEAN_MOTION": 14.21503246,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.00008613,
"INCLINATION": 98.7073,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 318.201,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 93.1643,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 266.9632,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 65159,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 5685,
"BSTAR": 0.000026862605,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 1.5e-7,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}