What Is SatFleet Live?
The Complete Guide to Real-Time Satellite, Space Debris & Re-entry Tracking

What Is SatFleet Live?

SatFleet Live is a free, real-time space tracking platform. It started as a satellite tracker and now covers the whole space environment: 16,000+ active satellites, the space debris that surrounds them, predicted re-entries counting down to the minute, live rocket launches, the Moon, Mars and the entire solar system. It runs in your browser with no download or account, and a free Android app adds push notifications and touch-optimised controls.

On Earth, the default Active view displays over 16,000 operational satellites with current orbital data: GPS and navigation constellations, the International Space Station, China's Tiangong, the Starlink fleet, weather satellites, military spacecraft, Earth observation satellites, amateur cubesats and thousands more. Dead hardware stays out of this view so every dot is a working spacecraft. Switch to the Space debris view and the globe shows the fragments and spent rocket bodies instead — together, the two views cover nearly 30,000 tracked objects.

The live view is only half the picture. The Re-entries layer shows which tracked objects are predicted to fall back into the atmosphere, and Playback lets you rewind the map to a past date and watch orbits replay. From there, tap Explore to jump to the Moon and its landing sites, to Mars where Curiosity and Perseverance are tracked with their real driving trails, or to Deep Space: the real position of all 8 planets, dwarf planets, major moons and active interplanetary spacecraft like Voyager 1 and 2 and the James Webb Space Telescope.

What's New: Playback, Re-entries & Space Debris

The latest update adds a time dimension and a risk dimension to the live map. If you read an earlier version of this guide, these are the three additions to look at first:

Android App — SatFleet Live on Google Play

SatFleet Live is available as a free Android app with the same live Earth, Moon, Mars and Deep Space maps as the website in a mobile-optimised interface. The app adds push notification support for satellite pass alerts, smoother touch controls for the 3D globe, and automatic performance scaling for lower-end devices.

The 3D Globe — Every Orbit, in Perspective

The Earth, Moon and Mars maps are interactive 3D globes powered by CesiumJS, with real imagery draped over a realistic sphere. Satellites appear as colour-coded dots at their true altitudes: a Starlink satellite at about 550 km sits visibly closer to the surface than a GPS satellite at about 20,200 km or a geostationary weather satellite at about 35,800 km. Rotate, zoom and tilt freely, and orbit paths draw themselves when you select a satellite.

Open Layers & Filters to control what the globe shows: switch between Active objects and Space debris, filter by category, and turn the Re-entries and Rockets layers on or off. Deep Space uses a separate, purpose-built 3D engine because a scale that works for satellites a few hundred kilometres up cannot stretch to the billions of kilometres between planets.

16,000+ Active Satellites: Categories & Filters

In the Active view, every satellite is colour-coded by category so the map stays readable with thousands of objects on screen. Use the search bar to jump straight to a satellite by name, or the Layers panel to filter by type. A legend on the map always shows what each colour means.

Space Debris Tracker — See the Junk Around Earth New

Open Layers & Filters and switch from Active objects to Space debris, and the globe replaces working satellites with the fragments and spent rocket bodies that orbit Earth. The two views are separate on purpose: thousands of fragments drawn on top of 16,000 satellites would make both unreadable.

Debris coloured by where it came from

Most of the tracked debris cloud traces back to a handful of events. Each dot takes the colour of its origin, so you can see how a single collision or test spreads along an orbit over the years.

Filter by origin and by size

Toggle any origin on or off, and filter by size — Large, Medium or Small — which is the object's radar cross-section class in the public catalogue. Dot size follows the same value, so rocket bodies and large fragments look visibly heavier than small ones.

1. Open Layers & FiltersTap Layers in the toolbar.
2. Choose Space debrisThe mode switch at the top toggles between Active objects and Space debris.
3. Pick origins and sizeShow only Fengyun 1C, only rocket bodies, only large objects — whatever you want to isolate.
4. Switch back to ActiveReturn to working satellites in one tap.

Why it matters: in low Earth orbit, debris travels at roughly 7 to 8 kilometres per second, so even small fragments can damage an operating spacecraft. Seeing where the clouds concentrate makes it easier to understand why orbital debris is one of the main long-term risks for satellite constellations.

Satellite Re-entry Tracker — Predicted Falls, Counted Down New

Turn on the Re-entries layer and SatFleet Live plots every object that the US space surveillance network currently predicts will fall back into the atmosphere: dead satellites, spent rocket stages and debris. Each appears as a diamond marker, colour-coded by how soon it is expected to come down, with a shaded zone showing where it could fall.

What you see when you select a re-entry

Select a marker and the map flies to it and opens a panel with a live countdown, the time uncertainty, the object type (satellite, rocket body or debris, with the country when known), the predicted point in latitude and longitude, and its NORAD ID. A List button opens a searchable, time-sorted list of every upcoming re-entry, with a filter for objects flagged as high interest in the source data.

How to read the shaded fall zone

When the timing is tight, the zone is a strip along the object's ground track. When it is not, the zone becomes a band of latitudes that the orbit can reach. Fainter shading means a less precise prediction, and zones with an uncertainty above ±30 minutes are only drawn when you select them, so the map isn't covered in far-off guesses.

Playback (Time Travel) — Replay Satellites, Planets and Spacecraft New

Playback adds a timeline to the map. Tap Playback at the bottom of the screen, choose a date, and watch orbits replay from that moment instead of from now. It works on every map: Earth satellites, Moon orbiters, Mars orbiters, and the planets and spacecraft of the solar system.

1. Tap PlaybackThe button sits at the bottom of the map, next to Explore. The panel is called Time Travel.
2. Pick a dateOn Earth, a calendar highlights the dates that have been archived. On the Moon, Mars and Deep Space maps, you can type any date in range.
3. Press GoHistory loads in the background day by day, so you can start watching right away.
4. Play or scrub the timelinePress play, or drag the scrubber, and change the speed from real time up to hours per second. Deep Space goes further: days, weeks, months and even a full year per second.

How far back can you go?

Playback is a fast way to answer questions the live map can't: where the ISS was earlier in the week, how a satellite's ground track has shifted over days, or where a planet or spacecraft was on a launch day or flyby. Earth positions are rebuilt from archived orbital data, and Moon, Mars and Deep Space positions come from NASA/JPL Horizons for the date you choose. Playback is available in the Active view, not in the debris view.

Next Passes — Predict Satellite Overheads

The Next Passes tool answers the question every satellite watcher asks: when can I actually see something? Enter or share your location, pick a satellite (or let it suggest the ISS and bright Starlink trains), and get a list of upcoming passes with exact time, maximum elevation, compass direction and visibility.

1. Set your locationUse GPS or enter coordinates manually. Nothing is stored without your permission.
2. Pick a satellite or categorySearch by name, or browse the ISS, Starlink and other visible-satellite categories.
3. Get exact pass timesStart time, maximum elevation, compass direction and expected brightness for each upcoming pass.
4. Go outside and look upPasses marked "visible" are ones you can realistically spot with the naked eye at dusk or dawn.

Live Rocket Launches & Countdowns

SatFleet Live tracks upcoming and in-progress rocket launches worldwide, including SpaceX Starship and Falcon 9 missions, with live countdowns, mission details and launch pad markers on the map. When a rocket is close to launch, a live video stream appears automatically so you can watch liftoff without leaving the page. Premium users can also run Trajectory Preview, a 3D simulation of the rocket's complete flight path, including stage separations, booster landings and payload deployment.

AR Sky View — Satellites on Your Camera

On supported phones, AR Sky View uses your device's compass and camera to overlay real satellite positions onto the live view of the sky above you. Point your phone up, and any satellite currently overhead appears as a coloured marker you can tap for details — a practical way to identify the bright, fast-moving dot you just spotted.

Explore — Earth, Moon, Mars & Deep Space

Look for the Explore button: a planet icon in the navigation bar on desktop, or a floating pill at the bottom of the screen on mobile. It opens a quick switcher between all four worlds without losing your place, and it is the same on every map, so getting from a Starlink pass over your city to the Voyager 1 probe in interstellar space takes two taps.

The Moon: Landing Sites & Live Lunar Orbiters

The Moon map lets you explore humanity's history of lunar exploration on a real 3D lunar globe rendered from NASA Moon Trek imagery. Every historic landing site is marked and clickable, showing the agency, the year and a short history of the mission.

Tap any orbiter to see its live position and speed and watch its orbital path trace itself around the Moon. A day/night terminator shows which side is lit by the Sun, calculated from the real lunar phase. With Playback you can replay lunar orbiters from any date since June 2009.

Mars: Live Rovers, Orbiters & Mission History

The Mars map is a real 3D model of Mars using its true oblate shape, NASA Trek surface imagery, and a full roster of everything humanity has sent there, active and historic.

Curiosity & Perseverance, tracked live

The two rovers currently operating on Mars are shown with their real position and a trail of every kilometre they have actually driven, sourced from NASA's published rover telemetry rather than a simulation. Click either rover to see its landing site, mission details and total distance driven.

Mission history back to 1976

An optional Historic Sites layer adds every earlier Mars landing: Viking 1 and 2 (the first successful Mars landings, 1976), Pathfinder (1997, which delivered Sojourner, the first Mars rover), Spirit and Opportunity (2004), Phoenix (2008), InSight (2018) and Zhurong (China's first Mars rover, 2021), alongside Ingenuity, the first aircraft to achieve powered flight on another planet.

Orbiters and the two moons of Mars

Active orbiters — MRO and Mars Odyssey (NASA), Mars Express (ESA) and Hope/EMM (UAE) — are tracked live with real orbital speed. Phobos and Deimos, the two natural moons of Mars, are shown with real photography. All positions come from NASA/JPL Horizons, and Mars' day/night lighting follows its real rotation of about 24 h 37 m. Playback lets you replay Mars orbiters from any date since October 1957.

Deep Space: The Whole Solar System, Live

Deep Space is a live view of the entire solar system, from the Sun to the edge of interstellar space. Every planet, dwarf planet, major moon and active interplanetary spacecraft is positioned using real NASA/JPL Horizons ephemeris data, the same system professional astronomers use to plan missions.

Every planet and dwarf planet, in real time

All 8 planets are shown in their true current position around the Sun, along with the dwarf planets Pluto and Ceres. Real interplanetary distances are too vast for a screen at true scale, so the default view compresses distance for readability while keeping every direction and relative position accurate.

Real spacecraft, tracked by name

Real moons, wherever they orbit

Beyond Earth's Moon, Deep Space tracks Phobos and Deimos at Mars and the four Galilean moons of Jupiter — Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto — each orbiting its real parent planet. With Playback, you can replay the whole system from any date since October 1957.

Real Scale View — See It Like You're Really There

Real Scale View is Deep Space's signature feature. Select any planet, moon, dwarf planet or spacecraft and activate it to see the solar system exactly as it would look from that object's position, with every nearby body drawn at its true relative angular size, calculated from its real radius and real distance.

• Select the Moon to see Earth as an astronaut on the lunar surface would, far larger in the sky than the Moon ever appears from Earth.
• Select a spacecraft mid-journey and watch its home world shrink to a distant point of light as it travels.
• Select Jupiter to see its four largest moons at the angular size and distance they would have from the cloud tops.

Nothing here is decorative. The maths uses each object's real physical radius and its real distance from whatever you've selected, projected the way a camera lens would render it, so what you see is an answer to "what would this actually look like from here?" rather than an artist's impression.

Compare Any Two Objects: Distance, Speed & Light Time

Every object on the Deep Space map includes a built-in comparison tool. Select anything and a searchable box lets you pick any other tracked object to compare it against. The result updates instantly, calculated from real NASA/JPL position data rather than from screen positions.

It's a small feature with a real educational payoff: pick Voyager 1 and Earth and you'll see that light itself needs the better part of a day to make the crossing, the same delay every real radio command to Voyager has to travel through.

How It Works: The Technology Behind It

SatFleet Live is built on real orbital mechanics and real space agency data. Nothing is simulated or approximated where a real dataset exists.

Free vs. Premium

SatFleet Live's core experience is free with no account required. SatFleet Premium is for people who want to go back in time and get deeper forecasting, and it directly supports the independent developer who builds and maintains the app. It starts with a 7-day free trial, then €2.99 per month, cancel anytime.

Data Sources & Accuracy

Frequently Asked Questions

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