- Earth-watching satellite
- NORAD 43641
- 2018-076A
- Low Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over Norway
Orbit ends over the Greenland Sea
In view from you
Nobody watches SAOCOM 1A 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 SAOCOM 1A, 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 Falcon 9 from Vandenberg. Source
Summary
Over the Southern Ocean LIVE
Where is SAOCOM 1A?
At 3:02:14 AM UTC SAOCOM 1A was over the Southern Ocean (71.7° S, 68.5° E), 650 km up, moving at 7.53 km/s and in sunlight.
What is SAOCOM 1A?
A satellite that watches the Earth in low Earth orbit, in space since Oct 8, 2018.
Can I see SAOCOM 1A?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for SAOCOM 1A, and nothing here estimates one; what people use is its pictures and measurements of the Earth.
General
- Launched
- Rocket
- Falcon 9
- Watches
- The soil and its moisture by L-band radar, day and night and through cloud, for farming and emergencies: oil spills at sea and flooded land
- Full picture of the Earth
- Every 16 days on its own, or every 8 together with SAOCOM 1B
- Operator
- CONAE, Argentina’s space agency, from its control centre in Córdoba, with Italy’s COSMO-SkyMed satellites
- Mass
- about 3 t
- Typical altitude
- 622 to 624 km
- Speed
- about 7.55 km/s (27,200 km/h)
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 3:02 AM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 3:02 AM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 71.7° S, 68.5° E
- Altitude
- 650 km
- Speed
- 7.53 km/s (27,112 km/h)
- Course
- north-west
- Light
- In sunlight
- Inclination
- 97.9°
- Orbital period
- 97.2 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 14.82
- This orbit
- 619 to 621 km
- In shadow
- None of this orbit
- In view from
- Within 1,850 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 2, 2026, 12:47 PM, 14 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 2, 2026, 12:47 PM, 14 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for SAOCOM 1A, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to SAOCOM 1A has been reported publicly in the past thirty days.
- Losing to drag
- SAOCOM 1A 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.
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 2, 2026, 12:47 PM, 14 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "SAOCOM 1-A",
"OBJECT_ID": "2018-076A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-02T12:47:07.578240",
"MEAN_MOTION": 14.82158985,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.0001399,
"INCLINATION": 97.887,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 131.3,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 84.2954,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 275.8418,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 43641,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 43659,
"BSTAR": -0.0000096505,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": -0.00000129,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}