International Space Station
Where the station is now, worked out every second from its latest orbital elements.
- Below
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- Height
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- Speed
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- Last 45 minutes
- Next 90 minutes
Imagery: NASA Earth Observatory (Blue Marble, August 2004) · Globe: CesiumJS · Country borders: world-atlas
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Calculated from orbital elements, not read from the station's own telemetry.
Orbital elements are a short set of numbers that describe the orbit at one moment, called the epoch. Every value on this page is worked out forward from that moment.
Where it is
The point on Earth directly below the station.
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Height and speed
Height above sea level. Speed is measured against the centre of the Earth, not the ground below.
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One trip around Earth
The time one orbit takes, worked out from how many orbits a day the elements describe.
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Sunlight
ApproximateWhether the station is in sunshine or passing through the Earth's shadow. The shadow is modelled as a simple cylinder, so the times are approximate.
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ISS passes over your sky
A pass is each time the station climbs at least 10 degrees above your horizon. You can see it when your sky is dark (the Sun at least 6 degrees below the horizon) and the station is still in sunlight, shining by reflected sunlight. Passes are predicted from the latest orbital elements, no more than 3 days past their epoch, and do not include the weather.
Loading the station's orbital elements