Type "satellite tracker" into Google and you will find dozens of tools that show you what is orbiting Earth right now. Type "solar system tracker" and the options thin out fast — and most of what remains is a static illustration, not something that moves because a spacecraft really moved.
Deep Space is SatFleet Live's answer to that gap: a live map of the entire solar system, built on the same principle as the rest of the site — real data, verified against NASA sources, updated automatically. This article explains exactly what it covers and how it works.
What Deep Space Tracking Actually Means
Earth satellite trackers rely on a data format called a TLE, which is mathematically built around objects orbiting Earth. It simply does not work for something like Voyager 1, which left Earth orbit decades ago and is now in interstellar space.
For anything beyond Earth, the right source is NASA/JPL's Horizons system — the same ephemeris data planetary scientists use to plan real missions. Deep Space queries Horizons directly for every planet, moon, and active spacecraft it tracks, so a position on the map reflects a real calculation, not an artist's impression of where something is roughly supposed to be.
Nothing on the Deep Space map is decorative. If a dot moves, it is because the object it represents really moved, according to data NASA itself publishes.
Everything Deep Space Tracks
Deep Space currently tracks over 40 real bodies across the solar system, organised into four categories.
Planets and dwarf planets
All 8 planets are shown at their true current position around the Sun, alongside several dwarf planets — Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, and others. Our companion article, is Pluto a planet?, goes deeper into why that classification exists and what it actually means.
Moons
Beyond Earth's own Moon, Deep Space tracks Mars' two moons (Phobos and Deimos), the four Galilean moons of Jupiter, and major moons of Saturn and Neptune, each shown orbiting its real parent planet.
Active spacecraft
This is where Deep Space goes furthest: it tracks real interplanetary missions by name, including Voyager 1 and 2, the James Webb Space Telescope, the Parker Solar Probe, New Horizons, and several others — updated automatically as new NASA data becomes available.
Mars, in more detail
If you want to go deeper on Mars specifically, SatFleet Live's Mars tracker shows Curiosity and Perseverance moving live with their real driving trails — read the full Curiosity vs Perseverance comparison for how the two rovers differ.
Real Scale View
Deep Space's default view compresses distance so the whole solar system fits on a screen — without this, Earth would be an invisible speck next to the Sun, and nothing beyond Mars would fit at all.
Real Scale View switches this off for whatever you have selected. Pick the Moon and activate it, and Earth appears at its true relative size — genuinely larger in the sky than the Moon ever looks from Earth. Pick a spacecraft mid-journey and watch its home planet shrink to a point of light exactly as it would through a real window. We cover this in full in Real Scale View explained.
How the Data Works
Every few hours, SatFleet Live's backend queries Horizons for each tracked object and stores the result. When you open Deep Space, your browser interpolates smoothly between the two nearest data points, so movement looks continuous rather than jumping once every few hours.
If a query to Horizons fails for a specific object — which happens occasionally with a free, public service — the map falls back to the last position it successfully retrieved rather than showing a gap. You can read a related walkthrough on how far Mars is from Earth right now, which explains the distance calculation in more detail.
Getting Started
- Open Deep Space Go to satfleetlive.com/deep-space.html, or use the Deep Space button from any other map on the site.
- Explore freely Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom. Every dot is clickable for its name, current distance, and velocity.
- Search for something specific Type a name — a planet, a moon, or a spacecraft like Voyager — to jump straight to it.
- Compare any two objects Select an object, then use the search box in its info panel to see the real distance, relative speed, and light-travel time to any other tracked object.
- Try Real Scale View With something selected, use the scale toggle to see the solar system exactly as it would look from there.