Maintained by:
Lists Available:
Other orbits:
Primary source of unclassified orbital elements
Orbital elements based on amateur observations | Sun-synchronous Satellites - Meteorology by LTDN
This a list of satellites in sun-synchronous orbit shown in the order they lie around the Earth. Names are not necessarily those by which they are known in the NORAD catalogue used by SpaceTrack.
It is a snapshot and is updated daily. The measure that results in an entry in this table is that the drift rate of LTDN (Local Time at the Descending Node) is no more than twenty four minutes each year. Some satellites may have higher drift rates but they may still be acceptable to their owners/operators. They do not appear here. On the converse, although a satellite is in a sun-synchronous orbit, it is not necessarily active.
Cubesats less than 6U in size are excluded from the list because the vast majority reached space by hitch hiking and their final orbit was not important. Listing them would create an unnecessarily long page.
The menu on the left leads to some, hopefully useful, sub-lists of the satellites on this page.
LTDN |
Satellite |
Cat no |
Desig- nation |
Orbit Epoch |
Orbit |
00:23 | ESSA 2 | 2091 | 1966-016A | 2022 Jun 26 | 1355 x 1414 km, 113.4 min, 101°.2 | 01:25 | NOAA 20 (JPSS 1) | 43013 | 2017-073A | 2022 Jun 26 | 826 x 828 km, 101.4 min, 98°.7 | 01:49 | Fengyun 3D | 43010 | 2017-072A | 2022 Jun 26 | 827 x 829 km, 101.5 min, 98°.8 | 01:52 | NOAA 17 | 27453 | 2002-032A | 2022 Jun 26 | 800 x 816 km, 101.0 min, 98°.7 | 02:28 | ESSA 8 | 3615 | 1968-114A | 2022 Jun 26 | 1414 x 1463 km, 114.6 min, 101°.5 | 02:54 | Meteor M2-2 | 44387 | 2019-038A | 2022 Jun 26 | 813 x 813 km, 101.1 min, 98°.7 | 03:23 | NOAA 5 (ITOS H) | 9057 | 1976-077A | 2022 Jun 26 | 1508 x 1524 km, 116.3 min, 102°.1 | 04:08 | USA 210 (DMSP 5D-3 F-18) | 35951 | 2009-057A | 2022 Jun 26 | 839 x 856 km, 101.9 min, 98°.7 | 04:35 | NOAA 10 | 16969 | 1986-073A | 2022 Jun 26 | 790 x 806 km, 100.8 min, 98°.6 | 04:53 | NOAA 8 | 13923 | 1983-022A | 2022 Jun 26 | 785 x 806 km, 100.8 min, 98°.7 | 05:02 | Fengyun 1B | 20788 | 1990-081A | 2022 Jun 26 | 872 x 896 km, 102.7 min, 98°.8 | 05:29 | NOAA 12 | 21263 | 1991-032A | 2022 Jun 26 | 796 x 814 km, 101.0 min, 98°.5 | 05:38 | Fengyun 3E | 49008 | 2021-062A | 2022 Jun 26 | 825 x 827 km, 101.4 min, 98°.7 | 05:55 | USA 109 (DMSP 5D-2 F-13) | 23533 | 1995-015A | 2022 Jun 26 | 834 x 844 km, 101.7 min, 98°.8 | 05:56 | USA 249 (DMSP 5D-3 F-19) | 39630 | 2014-015A | 2022 Jun 26 | 837 x 854 km, 101.8 min, 98°.7 | 06:31 | USA 191 (DMSP 5D-3 F-17) | 29522 | 2006-050A | 2022 Jun 26 | 839 x 852 km, 101.8 min, 98°.8 | 07:21 | USA 73 (DMSP 5D-2 F-11) | 21798 | 1991-082A | 2022 Jun 26 | 826 x 847 km, 101.6 min, 98°.8 | 07:29 | NOAA 15 | 25338 | 1998-030A | 2022 Jun 26 | 798 x 811 km, 101.0 min, 98°.6 | 08:54 | USA 106 (DMSP 5D-2 S-12) | 23233 | 1994-057A | 2022 Jun 26 | 831 x 849 km, 101.7 min, 98°.9 | 09:05 | TIROS-N | 11060 | 1978-096A | 2022 Jun 26 | 822 x 839 km, 101.5 min, 98°.6 | 09:30 | MetOp-B | 38771 | 2012-049A | 2022 Jun 26 | 819 x 822 km, 101.3 min, 98°.7 | 09:30 | MetOp-C | 43689 | 2018-087A | 2022 Jun 26 | 818 x 823 km, 101.3 min, 98°.7 | 09:45 | NOAA 1 (ITOS A) | 4793 | 1970-106A | 2022 Jun 26 | 1423 x 1472 km, 114.8 min, 101°.6 | 10:13 | NOAA 18 | 28654 | 2005-018A | 2022 Jun 26 | 840 x 860 km, 101.9 min, 98°.9 | 13:21 | TIROS 10 | 1430 | 1965-051A | 2022 Jun 26 | 716 x 798 km, 100.0 min, 98°.4 | 17:54 | DMSP 5D-2 F-6 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 13736 | 1982-118A | 2022 Jun 26 | 789 x 798 km, 100.7 min, 98°.6 | 17:58 | USA 26 (DMSP 5D-2 F-8) | 18123 | 1987-053A | 2022 Jun 26 | 820 x 839 km, 101.5 min, 98°.7 | 18:34 | AMS 3 (DMSP 5D-1 F-3) | 10820 | 1978-042A | 2022 Jun 26 | 766 x 780 km, 100.3 min, 98°.5 | 19:02 | DMSP 5C F-2 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 7816 | 1975-043A | 2022 Jun 26 | 773 x 851 km, 101.1 min, 98°.7 | 19:11 | DMSP 5C F-1 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 7411 | 1974-063A | 2022 Jun 26 | 769 x 827 km, 100.8 min, 98°.6 | 20:08 | DMSP 5A F-1 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 3266 | 1968-042A | 2022 Jun 26 | 803 x 880 km, 101.7 min, 98°.7 | 20:38 | DMSP 5A F-3 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 4047 | 1969-062A | 2022 Jun 26 | 764 x 827 km, 100.8 min, 98°.6 | 20:44 | DMSP 4A F-9 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 2920 | 1967-080A | 2022 Jun 26 | 816 x 870 km, 101.8 min, 98°.8 | 23:03 | Nimbus 3 (Nimbus B2) | 3890 | 1969-037A | 2022 Jun 26 | 1071 x 1129 km, 107.3 min, 99°.9 | 23:14 | Nimbus 6 (Nimbus F) | 7924 | 1975-052A | 2022 Jun 26 | 1100 x 1113 km, 107.4 min, 100°.1 | 23:22 | Nimbus 5 (Nimbus E) | 6305 | 1972-097A | 2022 Jun 26 | 1087 x 1101 km, 107.1 min, 99°.9 | 23:52 | Nimbus 4 (Nimbus D) | 4362 | 1970-025A | 2022 Jun 26 | 1087 x 1097 km, 107.1 min, 100°.0 |
For the satellites that do not have formal published elements, thanks go to the radio and visual amateur satellite trackers for their observing, and particularly to Mike McCants for archiving the derived orbits.
Updated: 2022 Jun 27, 01:48 UTC
|
|