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Orbital elements based on amateur observations | Sun-synchronous Satellites - Meteorology
This a list of metsats in sun-synchronous orbit. 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: 2023 Jan 28, 06:48 UTC
LTDN |
Satellite |
Cat no |
Desig- nation |
Orbit Epoch |
Orbit |
18:34 | AMS 3 (DMSP 5D-1 F-3) | 10820 | 1978-042A | 2023 Jan 27 | 765 x 780 km, 100.3 min, 98°.5 | 02:57 | AMS 4 (DMSP 5D-1 F-4) | 11389 | 1979-050A | 2023 Jan 27 | 789 x 807 km, 100.8 min, 98°.5 | 20:41 | DMSP 4A F-9 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 2920 | 1967-080A | 2023 Jan 27 | 816 x 870 km, 101.8 min, 98°.8 | 19:57 | DMSP 5A F-1 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 3266 | 1968-042A | 2023 Jan 27 | 804 x 878 km, 101.7 min, 98°.7 | 20:40 | DMSP 5A F-3 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 4047 | 1969-062A | 2023 Jan 27 | 765 x 827 km, 100.8 min, 98°.6 | 19:14 | DMSP 5C F-1 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 7411 | 1974-063A | 2023 Jan 27 | 767 x 828 km, 100.8 min, 98°.6 | 19:08 | DMSP 5C F-2 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 7816 | 1975-043A | 2023 Jan 27 | 774 x 850 km, 101.1 min, 98°.7 | 17:54 | DMSP 5D-2 F-6 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 13736 | 1982-118A | 2023 Jan 27 | 788 x 799 km, 100.7 min, 98°.6 | 00:14 | ESSA 2 | 2091 | 1966-016A | 2023 Jan 27 | 1355 x 1414 km, 113.4 min, 101°.2 | 02:18 | ESSA 8 | 3615 | 1968-114A | 2023 Jan 27 | 1414 x 1463 km, 114.6 min, 101°.5 | 04:48 | Fengyun 1B | 20788 | 1990-081A | 2023 Jan 27 | 872 x 896 km, 102.7 min, 98°.8 | 01:59 | Fengyun 3D | 43010 | 2017-072A | 2023 Jan 27 | 827 x 830 km, 101.5 min, 98°.8 | 05:37 | Fengyun 3E | 49008 | 2021-062A | 2023 Jan 27 | 824 x 828 km, 101.4 min, 98°.7 | 03:18 | Meteor M-1 | 35865 | 2009-049A | 2023 Jan 27 | 816 x 818 km, 101.2 min, 98°.6 | 03:01 | Meteor M2-2 | 44387 | 2019-038A | 2023 Jan 27 | 812 x 814 km, 101.1 min, 98°.8 | 09:30 | MetOp-B | 38771 | 2012-049A | 2023 Jan 27 | 819 x 821 km, 101.3 min, 98°.7 | 09:30 | MetOp-C | 43689 | 2018-087A | 2023 Jan 28 | 817 x 823 km, 101.3 min, 98°.7 | 22:55 | Nimbus 3 (Nimbus B2) | 3890 | 1969-037A | 2023 Jan 27 | 1070 x 1130 km, 107.3 min, 99°.8 | 23:55 | Nimbus 4 (Nimbus D) | 4362 | 1970-025A | 2023 Jan 27 | 1086 x 1098 km, 107.1 min, 100°.0 | 23:19 | Nimbus 5 (Nimbus E) | 6305 | 1972-097A | 2023 Jan 27 | 1088 x 1100 km, 107.1 min, 99°.9 | 23:20 | Nimbus 6 (Nimbus F) | 7924 | 1975-052A | 2023 Jan 27 | 1101 x 1112 km, 107.4 min, 100°.1 | 09:35 | NOAA 1 (ITOS A) | 4793 | 1970-106A | 2023 Jan 27 | 1423 x 1472 km, 114.8 min, 101°.5 | 03:27 | NOAA 5 (ITOS H) | 9057 | 1976-077A | 2023 Jan 28 | 1508 x 1524 km, 116.3 min, 102°.1 | 06:28 | NOAA 6 | 11416 | 1979-057A | 2023 Jan 27 | 772 x 786 km, 100.4 min, 98°.7 | 05:03 | NOAA 8 | 13923 | 1983-022A | 2023 Jan 27 | 785 x 805 km, 100.8 min, 98°.7 | 04:33 | NOAA 10 | 16969 | 1986-073A | 2023 Jan 27 | 788 x 807 km, 100.8 min, 98°.6 | 05:18 | NOAA 12 | 21263 | 1991-032A | 2023 Jan 27 | 795 x 815 km, 101.0 min, 98°.5 | 07:29 | NOAA 15 | 25338 | 1998-030A | 2023 Jan 27 | 797 x 812 km, 101.0 min, 98°.6 | 01:55 | NOAA 17 | 27453 | 2002-032A | 2023 Jan 27 | 800 x 816 km, 101.0 min, 98°.7 | 10:24 | NOAA 18 | 28654 | 2005-018A | 2023 Jan 28 | 839 x 860 km, 101.9 min, 98°.9 | 01:25 | NOAA 20 (JPSS, Joint Polar Satellite System 1) | 43013 | 2017-073A | 2023 Jan 27 | 826 x 828 km, 101.4 min, 98°.7 | 13:16 | TIROS 10 | 1430 | 1965-051A | 2023 Jan 27 | 717 x 797 km, 100.0 min, 98°.4 | 08:53 | TIROS-N | 11060 | 1978-096A | 2023 Jan 27 | 823 x 838 km, 101.5 min, 98°.6 | 17:57 | USA 26 (DMSP 5D-2 F-8) | 18123 | 1987-053A | 2023 Jan 27 | 819 x 839 km, 101.5 min, 98°.7 | 07:27 | USA 73 (DMSP 5D-2 F-11) | 21798 | 1991-082A | 2023 Jan 27 | 827 x 845 km, 101.6 min, 98°.8 | 09:02 | USA 106 (DMSP 5D-2 S-12) | 23233 | 1994-057A | 2023 Jan 27 | 832 x 847 km, 101.7 min, 98°.9 | 05:59 | USA 109 (DMSP 5D-2 F-13) | 23533 | 1995-015A | 2023 Jan 27 | 833 x 844 km, 101.7 min, 98°.8 | 06:27 | USA 191 (DMSP 5D-3 F-17) | 29522 | 2006-050A | 2023 Jan 27 | 838 x 852 km, 101.8 min, 98°.8 | 04:00 | USA 210 (DMSP 5D-3 F-18) | 35951 | 2009-057A | 2023 Jan 27 | 839 x 855 km, 101.9 min, 98°.8 | 05:50 | USA 249 (DMSP 5D-3 F-19) | 39630 | 2014-015A | 2023 Jan 27 | 837 x 853 km, 101.8 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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