Orbital Focus - International Spaceflight Facts and Figures
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Orbits


Tyneside, UK
2025 May 23
Friday, Day 143

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Primary source of unclassified orbital elements

Orbital elements based on amateur observations
Sun-synchronous Satellites - By Satellite Age

This a list of satellites in sun-synchronous orbit shown in the order that they were launched. 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.

Updated: 2025 May 19, 04:47 UTC

LTDN Satellite Cat
no
Desig- nation Orbit
Epoch
Orbit
14:38USA 224 (KH- 11 Block-4 F2?/Crystal)373482011-002A2024 Sep 18262 x 967 km, 97.0 min, 97°.9
10:21IGS 7 (IGS Radar 3)379542011-075A2025 May 18512 x 514 km, 94.9 min, 97°.4
07:24ELISA E12380082011-076B2025 Feb 15601 x 607 km, 96.8 min, 97°.7
07:59ELISA W11380102011-076D2024 Jan 20603 x 607 km, 96.8 min, 97°.7
13:33IGS 8A (IGS Radar 4)390612013-002A2025 May 10508 x 518 km, 94.9 min, 97°.5
09:42USA 245 (KH-11 Block-4 F3?/Crystal)392322013-043A2025 May 14264 x 982 km, 97.2 min, 97°.9
09:42IGS 9 (IGS Radar Spare)403812015-004A2025 May 16478 x 492 km, 94.3 min, 97°.4
10:16IGS 10 (IGS Optical 5)405382015-015A2025 May 17481 x 484 km, 94.3 min, 97°.3
10:15IGS 11 (IGS Radar 5)420722017-015A2025 May 18485 x 490 km, 94.4 min, 97°.4
09:51OptSat 3000429002017-044A2025 May 16493 x 512 km, 94.7 min, 97°.4
13:30IGS 12 (IGS Optical 6)432232018-021A2025 May 16481 x 484 km, 94.3 min, 97°.4
13:15IGS 13 (IGS Radar 6)434952018-052A2025 May 4487 x 489 km, 94.4 min, 97°.4
01:30CSO 1 (Composante Spatiale Optique 1)438662018-106A2025 May 17800 x 805 km, 100.9 min, 98°.6
10:30IGS 14 (IGS Optical 7)451652020-009A2025 May 18481 x 484 km, 94.3 min, 97°.4
01:33CSO 2 (Composante Spatiale Optique 2)473052020-104A2025 May 7485 x 485 km, 94.3 min, 97°.4
13:06USA 314 (KH-11 Block-5 F-2/Crystal)482472021-032A2025 May 16549 x 764 km, 97.9 min, 98°.1
11:58USA 326514452022-009A2025 May 15494 x 500 km, 94.6 min, 97°.4
06:00SARah 1528872022-063A2025 Jan 31744 x 749 km, 99.7 min, 98°.4
10:44IGS 15 (IGS Radar 7)553292023-012A2025 May 18487 x 489 km, 94.4 min, 97°.4
13:38IGS 16 (IGS Optical 8)587622024-010A2025 May 10481 x 485 km, 94.3 min, 97°.4
01:30Composante Spatiale Optique 3 (CSO 3)631562025-044A2025 May 11798 x 807 km, 100.9 min, 98°.7

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.

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