- Earth-watching satellite
- NORAD 42063
- 2017-013A
- Low Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the Arctic Ocean
Orbit ends over the Arctic Ocean
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches Sentinel-2B 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 Sentinel-2B, 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 Vega from Kourou. Source
Summary
Over the Indian Ocean LIVE
Where is Sentinel-2B?
At 3:02:29 AM UTC Sentinel-2B was over the Indian Ocean (16.3° S, 109.4° E), 796 km up, moving at 7.46 km/s and in sunlight.
What is Sentinel-2B?
A satellite that watches the Earth in low Earth orbit, in space since Mar 7, 2017.
Can I see Sentinel-2B?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for Sentinel-2B, and nothing here estimates one; what people use is its pictures and measurements of the Earth.
General
- Launched
- Rocket
- Vega
- Watches
- The land, its vegetation and the coastal waters from 84° N to 84° S, in 13 bands of visible and infrared light
- Full picture of the Earth
- Every 10 days on its own, or every 5 together with Sentinel-2C
- Operator
- ESA, which flies it from its operations centre in Darmstadt for the European Union’s Copernicus programme
- Mass
- about 1.1 t
- Typical altitude
- 788 to 790 km
- Speed
- about 7.46 km/s (26,800 km/h)
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 3:02 AM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 3:02 AM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 16.3° S, 109.4° E
- Altitude
- 796 km
- Speed
- 7.46 km/s (26,838 km/h)
- Course
- south
- Light
- In sunlight until 3:34 AM UTC
- Inclination
- 98.6°
- Orbital period
- 100.6 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 14.31
- This orbit
- 785 to 787 km
- In shadow
- 34 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 2,100 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 2, 2026, 11:01 AM, 13 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 2, 2026, 11:01 AM, 16 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Sentinel-2B, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Sentinel-2B has been reported publicly in the past thirty days.
- Losing to drag
- Sentinel-2B 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, 10 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 Copernicus Sentinel-2 programme
Orbinauts also tracks:
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 2, 2026, 11:01 AM, 13 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "SENTINEL 2B",
"OBJECT_ID": "2017-013A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-02T11:01:20.659296",
"MEAN_MOTION": 14.30818569,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.0001111,
"INCLINATION": 98.5723,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 19.2567,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 91.6876,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 268.4434,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 42063,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 50441,
"BSTAR": 0.0001697,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 0.00000401,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}