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OrbitaSky

The Space Station, right now.

Sunday · 16 August 2026 · 02:26 UTC-07:00

The International Space Station orbits Earth every 92 minutes at roughly 28,000 km/h, 420 km above the surface. It's the third-brightest object in the night sky — only the Sun and Moon outshine it. Use this page to see where it is at this moment, where it's heading next, and when it will pass over your sky.

Position right now
Over
Over Europe
46.54°, 19.41°
Altitude
421 km
Ground speed
27598 km/h
7.67 km/s
Lighting
Sunlit
Loading ground track…

Ground track shows the next 90 minutes of orbital path — about one full revolution. Marker is the current sub-satellite point.

Orbit
Mean altitude
420 km
Orbital period
93.0 min
Inclination
51.6°
Apogee
424 km
Perigee
415 km
Orbital element age
today
Two-Line Element set (TLE)
ISS (ZARYA) 1 25544U 98067A 26228.18012382 .00004999 00000+0 97292-4 0 9998 2 25544 51.6332 3.1747 0007602 51.3505 308.8162 15.49457398581050
Epoch age: today · fresh
International designator1998-067A
Epoch (UTC)2026-08-16 04:19:22 UTC
Inclination51.63°
Eccentricity0.0007602
Mean motion15.4946 rev/day · 92.9 min
BSTAR (drag)9.729e-5
RAAN3.17°
Arg. of perigee51.35°
Mean anomaly308.82°
Element set ##999

About the ISS

The International Space Station is a multinational science laboratory in low Earth orbit, continuously inhabited since November 2000. It's a partnership between NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada). The pressurized volume — about 1,000 cubic meters — is bigger than a six-bedroom house.

It's visible from the ground because its huge solar arrays — more than an acre of photovoltaics — reflect sunlight efficiently. At favorable passes it reaches magnitude −4 or brighter, easily outshining Venus. The station passes over a different part of Earth on each orbit; from any one location you typically get one to four visible passes per night, clustered around dawn and dusk.

Visible from your sky

When does the ISS pass over you?

Set your location on the main satellite passes page and we'll tell you every visible ISS pass for the next week — second-precise, with magnitude, peak altitude, and direction.

Open the pass predictor