Where Is the ISS Right Now?

The International Space Station (ISS) is moving at 7.66 km/s about 408 km above Earth, and this page shows where it is right now. The live ISS tracker updates every second with the current location of the station — latitude, longitude, altitude, velocity and the region it is passing over — calculated from NORAD two-line element (TLE) orbital data using the SGP4 model.

The ISS is a crewed modular space station operated jointly by NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA and CSA, catalogued as NORAD 25544. It has been continuously inhabited since November 2000 and completes one orbit of Earth every 92 minutes — about 15.5 orbits per day.

Its orbit is inclined 51.6° to the equator, so the ground track sweeps between 51.6° north and 51.6° south and passes over every major Indian city. The ISS is bright enough to see with the naked eye: during twilight passes it looks like a steady, non-blinking white light crossing the sky in three to six minutes. Positions on this page are estimates from orbital propagation, not live GPS from the spacecraft.

ISS Current Position and Coordinates

Live ISS coordinates — the latitude and longitude of the point on Earth directly below the station — update every second on this page, alongside the current altitude (about 408 km) and velocity (7.66 km/s, roughly 27,600 km/h). At that speed the ISS covers about 4 degrees of longitude every minute.

What Is the International Space Station?

The ISS is the largest structure humans have ever put in orbit, measuring 109 by 73 metres and massing around 420,000 kg. It serves as a microgravity research laboratory for astrobiology, astronomy, meteorology, physics and materials science, and as a testbed for the spacecraft systems needed for missions to the Moon and Mars. Its international designator is 1998-067A.

ISS Orbit and Ground Track Route

Earth rotates underneath the ISS orbit, so each successive lap crosses the equator about 22.5 degrees further west. That is why the ISS route drawn on a map looks like a westward-drifting sine wave rather than a fixed repeating loop, and why the station does not pass over the same city on consecutive orbits.

Is the ISS Visible from India?

Yes. The ISS passes over Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow and every other Indian city regularly. Best viewing is 30 to 60 minutes after sunset or before sunrise, when the station is still sunlit but the sky below is dark. At its brightest the ISS reaches magnitude -3 to -4, outshining every star and planet except the Moon and Venus.

How to Find the ISS Location in the Sky

Three conditions must hold at once for a visible pass: the ISS has to be above your horizon, your sky has to be dark, and the station has to be sunlit. Use the Above Me feature on SatelliteTracker.in to see which satellites are currently overhead from your location and how high each one is in degrees of elevation.