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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 Dec 6, 03:48 UTC
LTDN |
Satellite |
Cat no |
Desig- nation |
Orbit Epoch |
Orbit |
18:34 | AMS 3 (DMSP 5D-1 F-3) | 10820 | 1978-042A | 2023 Dec 5 | 765 x 777 km, 100.3 min, 98°.5 | 02:40 | AMS 4 (DMSP 5D-1 F-4) | 11389 | 1979-050A | 2023 Dec 5 | 788 x 805 km, 100.8 min, 98°.5 | 20:32 | DMSP 4A F-9 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 2920 | 1967-080A | 2023 Dec 5 | 814 x 871 km, 101.8 min, 98°.7 | 14:19 | DMSP 5A F-2 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 3510 | 1968-092A | 2023 Dec 5 | 778 x 822 km, 100.9 min, 98°.5 | 20:36 | DMSP 5A F-3 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 4047 | 1969-062A | 2023 Dec 5 | 763 x 828 km, 100.8 min, 98°.5 | 17:18 | DMSP 5B F-3 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 6275 | 1972-089A | 2023 Dec 5 | 771 x 822 km, 100.8 min, 98°.5 | 19:14 | DMSP 5C F-1 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 7411 | 1974-063A | 2023 Dec 5 | 767 x 826 km, 100.8 min, 98°.6 | 19:15 | DMSP 5C F-2 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 7816 | 1975-043A | 2023 Dec 5 | 773 x 849 km, 101.1 min, 98°.7 | 17:55 | DMSP 5D-2 F-6 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) | 13736 | 1982-118A | 2023 Dec 5 | 787 x 798 km, 100.7 min, 98°.6 | 00:03 | ESSA 2 | 2091 | 1966-016A | 2023 Dec 5 | 1354 x 1414 km, 113.4 min, 101°.2 | 02:09 | ESSA 8 | 3615 | 1968-114A | 2023 Dec 5 | 1414 x 1463 km, 114.6 min, 101°.6 | 04:32 | Fengyun 1B (Fengyun 1-02) | 20788 | 1990-081A | 2023 Dec 5 | 872 x 896 km, 102.6 min, 98°.9 | 02:14 | Fengyun 3A (Fengyun 3-01) | 32958 | 2008-026A | 2023 Dec 5 | 823 x 834 km, 101.5 min, 98°.6 | 05:37 | Fengyun 3E (Fengyun 3-05) | 49008 | 2021-062A | 2023 Dec 5 | 826 x 827 km, 101.4 min, 98°.7 | 03:03 | Meteor M-1 | 35865 | 2009-049A | 2023 Dec 5 | 814 x 819 km, 101.2 min, 98°.6 | 03:16 | Meteor M2-2 | 44387 | 2019-038A | 2023 Dec 5 | 811 x 814 km, 101.1 min, 98°.8 | 09:27 | MetOp-B | 38771 | 2012-049A | 2023 Dec 5 | 820 x 821 km, 101.3 min, 98°.7 | 09:29 | MetOp-C | 43689 | 2018-087A | 2023 Dec 5 | 819 x 821 km, 101.3 min, 98°.7 | 22:40 | Nimbus 3 (Nimbus B2) | 3890 | 1969-037A | 2023 Dec 5 | 1070 x 1130 km, 107.3 min, 99°.8 | 00:00 | Nimbus 4 (Nimbus D) | 4362 | 1970-025A | 2023 Dec 5 | 1086 x 1098 km, 107.1 min, 100°.0 | 23:15 | Nimbus 5 (Nimbus E) | 6305 | 1972-097A | 2023 Dec 5 | 1088 x 1100 km, 107.1 min, 99°.9 | 23:27 | Nimbus 6 (Nimbus F) | 7924 | 1975-052A | 2023 Dec 5 | 1101 x 1112 km, 107.4 min, 100°.0 | 09:16 | NOAA 1 (ITOS A) | 4793 | 1970-106A | 2023 Dec 5 | 1423 x 1472 km, 114.8 min, 101°.5 | 03:37 | NOAA 5 (ITOS H) | 9057 | 1976-077A | 2023 Dec 5 | 1509 x 1523 km, 116.3 min, 102°.2 | 06:47 | NOAA 6 | 11416 | 1979-057A | 2023 Dec 5 | 769 x 786 km, 100.4 min, 98°.6 | 05:20 | NOAA 8 | 13923 | 1983-022A | 2023 Dec 5 | 783 x 806 km, 100.8 min, 98°.7 | 04:33 | NOAA 10 | 16969 | 1986-073A | 2023 Dec 5 | 788 x 805 km, 100.8 min, 98°.6 | 05:04 | NOAA 12 | 21263 | 1991-032A | 2023 Dec 5 | 795 x 814 km, 101.0 min, 98°.5 | 07:25 | NOAA 15 | 25338 | 1998-030A | 2023 Dec 5 | 796 x 811 km, 101.0 min, 98°.6 | 02:05 | NOAA 17 | 27453 | 2002-032A | 2023 Dec 5 | 798 x 816 km, 101.0 min, 98°.7 | 10:35 | NOAA 18 | 28654 | 2005-018A | 2023 Dec 5 | 839 x 859 km, 101.9 min, 98°.9 | 01:25 | NOAA 20 (JPSS, Joint Polar Satellite System 1) | 43013 | 2017-073A | 2023 Dec 5 | 826 x 828 km, 101.4 min, 98°.7 | 13:12 | TIROS 10 | 1430 | 1965-051A | 2023 Dec 5 | 716 x 796 km, 99.9 min, 98°.4 | 17:55 | USA 26 (DMSP 5D-2 F-8) | 18123 | 1987-053A | 2023 Dec 5 | 820 x 837 km, 101.5 min, 98°.7 | 07:32 | USA 73 (DMSP 5D-2 F-11) | 21798 | 1991-082A | 2023 Dec 5 | 826 x 846 km, 101.6 min, 98°.8 | 09:09 | USA 106 (DMSP 5D-2 S-12) | 23233 | 1994-057A | 2023 Dec 5 | 831 x 848 km, 101.7 min, 98°.8 | 06:06 | USA 109 (DMSP 5D-2 F-13) | 23533 | 1995-015A | 2023 Dec 5 | 834 x 842 km, 101.7 min, 98°.8 | 08:23 | USA 131 (DMSP 5D-2 F-14) | 24753 | 1997-012A | 2023 Dec 5 | 832 x 844 km, 101.7 min, 98°.9 | 06:20 | USA 191 (DMSP 5D-3 F-17) | 29522 | 2006-050A | 2023 Dec 5 | 837 x 852 km, 101.8 min, 98°.8 | 03:54 | USA 210 (DMSP 5D-3 F-18) | 35951 | 2009-057A | 2023 Dec 5 | 838 x 854 km, 101.8 min, 98°.8 | 05:43 | USA 249 (DMSP 5D-3 F-19) | 39630 | 2014-015A | 2023 Dec 5 | 837 x 852 km, 101.8 min, 98°.8 |
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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