- Space station
- Tiangong
- NORAD 48274
- 2021-035A
- Low Earth orbit
- Naked-eye
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the Indian Ocean
Orbit ends over the Indian Ocean
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
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:
- LondonNo visible pass in the next 10 days
- New York CityNo visible pass in the next 10 days
- Sydney
How to see it
It crosses the sky as a steady point of light, as bright as Jupiter, moving far faster than an aircraft and never blinking. A pass lasts up to about six minutes from one horizon to the other, and the best ones come in the hour or two after sunset or before sunrise, while the sky is dark and the station overhead is still in sunlight. It can be seen as far north and south as about 53°, with no telescope and no binoculars.
Passes over: Tokyo, Delhi, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Madrid, Cairo, São Paulo, Sydney, every city
Altitude
One reading a day, worked out from the elements Space-Track publishes.
Timeline
Size
- Tiangong
- Football pitch, 105 by 68 m
Summary
Over the Atlantic Ocean LIVE
Where is Tiangong?
At 8:06:35 PM UTC Tiangong was over the Atlantic Ocean (14.6° N, 23° W), 388 km up, moving at 7.68 km/s and in sunlight.
What is Tiangong?
A space station in low Earth orbit, in space since Apr 29, 2021 and crewed without interruption since Jun 5, 2022.
Can I see Tiangong tonight?
Yes: Tiangong 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
- Crewed without interruption since
- Size
- 55 m across the solar arrays by 39 m of modules
- Crew
- 3 people
- Pressurised modules
- 3
- Air
- Oxygen is made by splitting water with electricity; its operator says all of the oxygen and about 95% of the water are regenerated aboard.
- Power
- more than 80 kW from its solar arrays
- Docking ports
- 5
- Mass
- about 100 t
- Typical altitude
- 380 to 400 km
- Speed
- about 7.67 km/s (27,600 km/h)
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 8:06 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 8:06 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 14.6° N, 23° W
- Altitude
- 388 km
- Speed
- 7.68 km/s (27,648 km/h)
- Course
- south-east
- Light
- In sunlight until 8:09 PM UTC
- Inclination
- 41.5°
- Orbital period
- 92.3 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 15.6
- This orbit
- 388 to 391 km
- In shadow
- 34 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 1,310 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Sep 18, 2026, 7:08 AM, 12 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Sep 18, 2026, 7:08 AM, 12 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Tiangong, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- Close approaches to Tiangong are not available right now. Try again in a few minutes.
- Losing to drag
- Tiangong is falling about 103 m a day, read from the last 2 days of samples.
Beside the others
| Satellite | Typical altitude | Orbital period | Mass | Crew | Pressurised modules | In space since |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tiangong | 380 to 400 km | 92 minutes | about 100 t | 3 | 3 | 2021 |
| ISS | 400 to 420 km | 93 minutes | about 420 t | 7 | — | 1998 |
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Sep 18, 2026, 7:08 AM, 12 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "CSS (TIANHE-1)",
"OBJECT_ID": "2021-035A",
"EPOCH": "2026-09-18T07:08:44.680704",
"MEAN_MOTION": 15.6006867,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.00026259,
"INCLINATION": 41.4677,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 116.6699,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 287.9042,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 72.151,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 48274,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 30770,
"BSTAR": 0.00020658515,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 0.00016929,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}