Real-Time Satellite Tracking
It's never been so easy to launch into space.
Deep Space Missions
Follow humanity’s return to the Moon with real-time tracking of Artemis II and future deep space missions.
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Sensor management, break-up analysis, and mission planning.
Education & Outreach
Explore orbits, constellations, and satellite systems hands-on.
Expert analysis, technical guides, and the latest developments in space domain awareness
In 2024, a NASA satellite and a dead Russian spacecraft missed each other by less than 10 meters, and nobody knew how close it really was until weeks later. Neither one could move. Here are the ten nearest brushes with disaster in orbit, ranked.
On July 11, 2026, a Portuguese satellite named after a Nobel laureate became the first object to carry catalog number 100000. It broke a five-digit numbering limit that had held since Sputnik, and exposed how unprepared decades of tracking software is for a sky this crowded.
A camera the size of a school bus, a space station with a cannon, and astronauts trained to crawl through a hole in the heat shield. These are the spy satellites the government finally admitted exist.
Iran calls Kowsar 1.5 a private-sector farming satellite. Its 3.45-meter camera, its sun-synchronous orbit, and the Russian rocket that carried it point somewhere else entirely.
In-depth technical analysis and comprehensive guides for space professionals
Object 55056 rode a SpaceX rideshare into orbit carrying more than customer satellites. It carried the survival of Momentus, a company that had already lost its founder to a national security review, settled SEC fraud charges, and watched its first space tug die in orbit.
Russia's Volna Kupol Garant electronic warfare system was purpose-built to jam Starlink. It costs around $1.5 million per unit, covers just 20 square kilometers, and can only target one satellite at a time. Ukraine has been finding and destroying them within days of deployment.
In 2010 a wounded Japanese probe limped home with a few specks of asteroid dust. Sixteen years later China's Tianwen-2 is reaching for a chunk of a rock that orbits alongside Earth, and the technique that once seemed impossible has become something close to routine.
The volume of space between Earth and the Moon is roughly a thousand times larger than the orbit we actually watch, and almost none of it is under surveillance. As the U.S. and China race to build lunar outposts, the Space Force is scrambling to put eyes on a region it has been effectively blind to.
Community resources, mission coverage, and satellite tracking developments
On 29 June 1965, a young Air Force test pilot rode a rocket-powered airplane to 280,600 feet above the California desert. He landed ten minutes later as the youngest person ever to earn astronaut wings.
On 25 June 1997, a seven-ton cargo ship under hand control drifted into Mir's Spektr module, breached the hull, and left three crew members listening to their air hiss into space. It remains the worst collision in the history of human spaceflight.
On 22 June 1978, an astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory looked at photographic plates that had been stamped 'image defective' and noticed a small bump on the side of Pluto. The bump was a moon, and finding it finally let astronomers weigh a planet that had fooled them for half a century.
On 21 June 2004, a 63-year-old test pilot rode a homebuilt rocket plane to 100,124 meters above the Mojave Desert, clearing the edge of space by about the length of a city block. He came down the first private astronaut in history, holding a sign that read 'SpaceShipOne, GovernmentZero.'
Concise updates on launches, orbital events, and breaking space news
SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 deployed first Starlink V3 satellites and achieved its softest splashdown yet from Starbase, Texas.
SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 successfully landed both stages July 24 and deployed the first operational Starlink V3 satellites, marking a major milestone for the vehicle's payload capability.
Tropical Storm Bertha delays Starship Flight 13 to Friday; NASA swaps SunRISE to Falcon Heavy; Google reveals $94.1B SpaceX stake.
China's Shijian-31 satellite operates in custom GEO orbit sweeping across geostationary belt rather than parking stationary, enabling repeated close surveillance of other operators' spacecraft.
SpaceX delays Starship Flight 13 to July 24+ for Booster 20 testing as legal fights over Starbase land swap intensify.
China's Shijian-31 satellite operates from unique non-standard orbit, sweeping entire geostationary belt rather than fixed position. Shifts surveillance calculus for monitoring US GEO assets.
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