- Earth-watching satellite
- Military
- NORAD 43215
- 2018-020A
- Low Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the Arctic Ocean
Orbit ends over the Arctic Ocean
In view from you
Nobody watches PAZ 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, PAZ 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 Falcon 9 from Vandenberg. Source
Summary
Over the Mozambique Channel LIVE
Where is PAZ?
At 3:00:44 AM UTC PAZ was over the Mozambique Channel (19.2° S, 42.4° E), 516 km up, moving at 7.6 km/s and in sunlight.
What is PAZ?
A satellite that watches the Earth in low Earth orbit, in space since Feb 22, 2018.
Can I see PAZ?
No, not with the naked eye: even at its closest, PAZ is too faint to see from anywhere on Earth; what people use is its pictures and measurements of the Earth.
General
- Launched
- Rocket
- Falcon 9
- Watches
- The Earth’s surface by X-band radar, day and night and in any weather, in detail down to 25 cm, for defence and civilian uses; and the atmosphere, by GPS radio occultation
- Full picture of the Earth
- Any spot on Earth every 24 hours on average
- Operator
- Hisdesat, the Spanish company that owns and flies it, with Spain’s Ministry of Defence as its main customer
- Mass
- about 1.4 t
- Typical altitude
- 507 to 510 km
- Speed
- about 7.61 km/s (27,400 km/h)
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 3:00 AM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 3:00 AM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 19.2° S, 42.4° E
- Altitude
- 516 km
- Speed
- 7.6 km/s (27,374 km/h)
- Course
- south
- Light
- In sunlight
- Inclination
- 97.4°
- Orbital period
- 94.8 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 15.19
- This orbit
- 504 to 507 km
- In shadow
- None of this orbit
- In view from
- Within 1,600 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 2, 2026, 1:29 PM, 13 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 2, 2026, 1:29 PM, 13 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for PAZ, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to PAZ has been reported publicly in the past thirty days.
- Losing to drag
- PAZ has not fallen measurably over 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, 1:29 PM, 13 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "PAZ",
"OBJECT_ID": "2018-020A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-02T13:29:30.682752",
"MEAN_MOTION": 15.19149735,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.0001657,
"INCLINATION": 97.4458,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 311.9837,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 89.3116,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 270.8308,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 43215,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 48201,
"BSTAR": 0.000050344,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 0.0000099,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}