- Earth-watching satellite
- NORAD 40115
- 2014-048A
- Low Earth orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the People's Republic of China
Orbit ends over India
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches WorldView-3 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 WorldView-3, 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 Atlas V from Vandenberg. Source
Summary
Over the South China Sea LIVE
Where is WorldView-3?
At 3:02:18 AM UTC WorldView-3 was over the South China Sea (21.3° N, 115° E), 615 km up, moving at 7.55 km/s and in sunlight.
What is WorldView-3?
A satellite that watches the Earth in low Earth orbit, in space since Aug 13, 2014.
Can I see WorldView-3?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for WorldView-3, and nothing here estimates one; what people use is its pictures and measurements of the Earth.
General
- Launched
- Rocket
- Atlas V
- Watches
- Whatever it is pointed at, in detail down to 31 cm, in visible light and in infrared that sees through haze and smoke
- Full picture of the Earth
- Any spot it is asked for within a day on average, and up to 680,000 km² a day
- Operator
- Vantor, called Maxar Intelligence until 2025, which flies it as a commercial imaging satellite
- Mass
- about 2.8 t
- Typical altitude
- 612 to 615 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
- 21.3° N, 115° E
- Altitude
- 615 km
- Speed
- 7.55 km/s (27,194 km/h)
- Course
- south
- Light
- In sunlight until 3:42 AM UTC
- Inclination
- 97.8°
- Orbital period
- 97 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 14.85
- This orbit
- 609 to 611 km
- In shadow
- 35 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 1,790 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 2, 2026, 11:46 AM, 13 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 2, 2026, 11:46 AM, 15 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for WorldView-3, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to WorldView-3 has been reported publicly in the past thirty days.
- Losing to drag
- WorldView-3 is falling about 4 m 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, 11 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, 11:46 AM, 13 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "WORLDVIEW 3",
"OBJECT_ID": "2014-048A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-02T11:46:28.037856",
"MEAN_MOTION": 14.85199292,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.0001283,
"INCLINATION": 97.8444,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 19.3281,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 156.6677,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 203.4596,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 40115,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 66243,
"BSTAR": 0.000055777,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 0.00000425,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}