Live, when you ask
Where is the ISS right now?
The International Space Station circles Earth about every hour and a half. Press the button to fetch its current position and see where it is on the map, whether it is in sunlight, and where it will pass next.
Nothing has been fetched yet. Each press sends one request to api.wheretheiss.at.
- The station
- Can see it (above the horizon)
- Night side
- Sun overhead
- Next 90 minutes
Latitude
–
press Locate
Longitude
–
press Locate
Altitude
–
km above sea level
Speed
–
km/h
Sunlight
–
day or night up there
Position time
–
from the API
Positions come from the free Where the ISS at? API (api.wheretheiss.at), fetched only when you press a button. The map is Natural Earth land at 1:110 million.
Reading the map
The orange dot is the point on Earth directly below the station. Anyone inside the dashed circle has it above the horizon, though it is only easy to see when their sky is dark and the station is still lit by the Sun, which happens in the hour or two after sunset or before sunrise. The shaded area is the night side, and the yellow dot marks where the Sun is overhead.
Show the next 90 minutes asks the same API for nine future positions, ten minutes apart, roughly one lap. The path snakes because Earth turns underneath while the tilted orbit carries the station between about 52 degrees north and south.
A typical orbit, worked out with Kepler's third law:
- 92.8 minutes per orbit at 420 km (Kepler's third law with Earth's GM)
- 15.5 orbits a day, so about 16 sunrises and sunsets on board
- 7.66 km/s, about 27,600 km/h
- 2,252 km from the point below it to where it sits on the horizon
For alerts when it passes over you, NASA runs Spot the Station.
Sources
- Live and predicted positions: Where the ISS at? REST API documentation (satellite 25544).
- Sixteen orbits, sunrises and sunsets a day: NASA, Space Station Facts and Figures.
- Earth's GM (398,600 km³/s²) and mean radius (6,371 km) for the orbit facts: NASA Earth Fact Sheet.
- Coastlines: Natural Earth 1:110m land, public domain, via the world-atlas package.
Questions and answers
Why can't I see the ISS when it is overhead on the map?
In daylight the sky is too bright, and in the middle of the night the station is in Earth's shadow too. It shows up best in the hour or two after sunset or before sunrise, as a steady bright point crossing the sky in a few minutes.
Does this page know where I am?
No. It never asks for your location. The request only asks the API where the station is; like any web request it reaches the API's server from your internet address.
How often does the position update?
Only when you press Locate, or every 10 seconds while the update box is ticked. Updates pause while the tab is hidden, and the API asks users to stay around one request a second.
Why did the request fail?
The API may be busy or briefly down, or you may be offline. The rest of this site keeps working; try again in a minute.