ATLAS CENTAUR 2
launched 1963low orbitbright to the eyeabout 9 × 3 mNORAD 694 · 1963-047A
- Height
- 477.9 km
- From center
- 6,851.5 km
- Sunlight
- In shadow
- Speed
- 7.824 km/s
- Ground speed
- 6.877 km/s
- Over
- 27.232° N, 47.506° W
Passes
Known downlinks
No downlink frequencies are on file for this satellite. You can type one into the radio chart.
Elements are 12 hours old, from CelesTrak GP data (groups: visual), fetched 2 h ago.
Technical details
Mean elements
Elements are 12 hours old, from CelesTrak GP data (groups: visual), fetched 2 h ago.How accurate is this?
- Perigee
- 460 km
- Apogee
- 1,247 km
- Period
- 101.99 min
- Inclination
- 30.35°
- Eccentricity
- 0.0544
- Semi-major axis
- 7,231.2 km
- Epoch
- 2026-11-15T10:23:56Z
Orbit diagram
Orbit check
The live speed and distance fit this orbit to within 0.020%.
Vis-viva: v²r/GM = 1.0523 and 2 − r/a = 1.0525
Raw elements
2LE
1 00694U 63047A 26319.43328882 .00001714 00000+0 19689-3 0 9996 2 00694 30.3523 233.3408 0544137 131.7366 233.1084 14.12943768167102
3LE
ATLAS CENTAUR 2 1 00694U 63047A 26319.43328882 .00001714 00000+0 19689-3 0 9996 2 00694 30.3523 233.3408 0544137 131.7366 233.1084 14.12943768167102
OMM
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "ATLAS CENTAUR 2",
"OBJECT_ID": "1963-047A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-15T10:23:56.154048",
"MEAN_MOTION": 14.12943768,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.0544137,
"INCLINATION": 30.3523,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 233.3408,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 131.7366,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 233.1084,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 694,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 16710,
"BSTAR": 0.00019689,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 0.00001714,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}How we compute these
- Altitude
- Height above the WGS84 ellipsoid, the standard model of Earth's shape, straight below the satellite.
- Speed
- The length of SGP4's velocity vector in the TEME frame: the inertial speed. It is not the speed over the ground.
- Ground speed
- How fast the point below the satellite moves across Earth's surface, with Earth's rotation taken out.
- From Earth's center
- Distance from Earth's center, from SGP4's position.
- Latitude and longitude
- The point on the WGS84 ellipsoid straight below the satellite, from SGP4's position turned into Earth-fixed coordinates.
- Sunlight
- How much sunlight reaches the satellite past Earth and its atmosphere. Light grazing Earth is dimmed by air and ozone, bent into the shadow by refraction, and blocked below 10 km (clouds and haze); the Sun's disc is darker at its edge. So the satellite fades over a few seconds in low orbit and a couple of minutes in geostationary orbit, reddening as it goes, rather than switching off. The atmosphere is a clear standard one: haze from a large volcanic eruption can make the real fade come a few seconds early.
- Orbit check (vis-viva)
- v²r/GM uses the live speed and distance above, with GM = 398,600.4418 km³/s². Vis-viva says it equals 2 − r/a, where a is the mean semi-major axis. They agree as closely as SGP4's mean elements allow, usually within 1%.
- Mean elements
- Perigee, apogee, period, eccentricity, inclination and semi-major axis are mean elements from the published set, not instantaneous values. Perigee and apogee heights are above Earth's equatorial radius (6,378 km).
- Epoch
- The epoch is the moment the element set describes. Positions get less accurate the further you are from it.
- How accurate is this?
- Positions are predictions from the published elements, not live tracking. Through SGP4 they are usually within a kilometre or two near the epoch and drift by a few km a day after it, more for low or manoeuvring satellites. The map shows ground positions, the point straight below the satellite, so dots that look close can be thousands of km apart in height. Good for passes and tracks; not for judging close approaches between objects.