- Earth-watching satellite
- Suomi NPP
- NORAD 37849
- 2011-061A
- Low Earth orbit
- Naked-eye
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over Canada
Orbit ends over Canada
In the Earth’s shadow since
Back in sunlight
Passes over you
Say where you are and your own next passes appear here, the first drawn across your sky.
Your position is rounded to about a kilometre and sent only to the Orbinauts API, to find the pass.
Meanwhile, the next visible pass over three cities:
- London
- New York CityNo visible pass in the next 10 days
- SydneyNo visible pass in the next 10 days
How to see it
It crosses the sky as a steady point of light, no brighter than a faint star, a few minutes from one horizon to the other and never blinking. Its orbit keeps it over the line between day and night, so the hour after sunset and the hour before sunrise are the times to look, under as dark a sky as you can find. It can be seen from anywhere on Earth.
Passes over: Dublin, Istanbul, Kolkata, Jakarta, Perth, Seattle, Bogotá, Cairo, every city
Altitude
One reading a day, worked out from the elements Space-Track publishes.
Timeline
- Launch
Launched on Delta II from Vandenberg. Source
Summary
Over the Indian Ocean LIVE
Where is Suomi NPP?
At 8:07:21 PM UTC Suomi NPP was over the Indian Ocean (6.4° N, 83.5° E), 830 km up, moving at 7.44 km/s and in the Earth’s shadow.
What is Suomi NPP?
A satellite that watches the Earth in low Earth orbit, in space since Oct 28, 2011.
Can I see Suomi NPP tonight?
Yes: Suomi NPP can be seen with the naked eye when it passes over you in a dark sky, after dusk or before dawn, as a steady light that crosses the sky in a few minutes.
General
- Launched
- Watches
- Weather and climate: clouds, oceans, vegetation, ice and the air, and by night the lights of cities, fires and auroras
- Full picture of the Earth
- Every point on Earth twice a day, at about 1:30 in the morning and 1:30 in the afternoon
- Operator
- NOAA, which flies it in its Joint Polar Satellite System, with NASA, which launched it
- Mass
- about 2.1 t
- Typical altitude
- 825 to 829 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
- 6.4° N, 83.5° E
- Altitude
- 830 km
- Speed
- 7.44 km/s (26,777 km/h)
- Course
- south
- Light
- In the Earth’s shadow until 8:27 PM UTC
- Inclination
- 98.8°
- Orbital period
- 101.4 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 14.2
- This orbit
- 822 to 826 km
- In shadow
- 33 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 2,160 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Sep 18, 2026, 7:28 AM, 12 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Sep 18, 2026, 7:28 AM, 12 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Suomi NPP, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- Close approaches to Suomi NPP are not available right now. Try again in a few minutes.
- Losing to drag
- Suomi NPP is falling less than a metre a day, read from the last 2 days of samples.
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Sep 18, 2026, 7:28 AM, 12 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "NPP",
"OBJECT_ID": "2011-061A",
"EPOCH": "2026-09-18T07:28:01.823808",
"MEAN_MOTION": 14.19533769,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.00027845,
"INCLINATION": 98.8008,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 201.57,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 68.4328,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 291.7144,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 37849,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 77165,
"BSTAR": 0.000048576274,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 5.8e-7,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}