Satellites to see in the night sky

Satellites

Pick something to look up at

A few satellites worth following, and every active one CelesTrak publishes. Each page shows the orbit, how fresh its elements are, and its next passes.

Search the catalogue by name or NORAD number

Crewed stations

NORAD 25544

International Space Station

The brightest satellite in the sky, often brighter than any star. Crewed since 2000.

NORAD 48274

Tiangong (Tianhe core module)

China's space station, in a lower-inclination orbit: easy to see from southern Europe.

Science

NORAD 20580

Hubble Space Telescope

At 28.5° inclination, visible only from latitudes below about 50°.

Amateur radio

NORAD 27607

SaudiSat-1C (SO-50)

A long-lived FM repeater, a classic first contact through a satellite.

Earth observation

NORAD 25994

Terra

NASA flagship with MODIS and ASTER, crossing the equator mid-morning.

NORAD 27424

Aqua

Terra’s afternoon twin, measuring the water cycle.

NORAD 39084

Landsat 8

Half of the longest-running Earth imaging record, sun-synchronous at 705 km.

NORAD 49260

Landsat 9

The other half: together, a new image of every place every eight days.

NORAD 40697

Sentinel-2A

Copernicus multispectral imager, 10 m resolution over land.