The ISS
The International Space Station orbits about 400 km up at roughly 28,000 km/h, circling Earth every 90 minutes. It is the brightest thing most people will ever see cross the night sky, and the readout above is its live position.
How to see the ISS tonight
Catch the right window
The ISS is visible in the hour or two after sunset or before sunrise, when it is still lit by the Sun while the sky above you has gone dark. In the middle of the night it is in Earth’s shadow and invisible, however high it passes.
Look for a steady light
Unlike an aircraft it does not blink. It glides smoothly across the sky over two to five minutes as one of the brightest points up there, and it never changes colour.
Know when and where
Share your location and AstroSat predicts each pass over your exact spot — time, direction and peak elevation — so you are looking the right way before it appears rather than after.
Watch the track
The ground track above is one full orbit. Its 51.6° inclination is why the station reaches most of the inhabited world but never passes directly over the far north or the far south.
The International Space Station has been continuously crewed since November 2000 — the longest unbroken human presence off Earth. It circles roughly sixteen times a day at about 28,000 km/h, which is why its ground track shifts west on every pass and why a given place gets visible passes in clusters of a few days rather than evenly. The position on this page is propagated in your browser with SGP4 from orbital data refreshed every two hours, the same model and the same element set that drive the globe.
Frequently asked questions
How fast does the ISS travel?
About 28,000 km/h (7.66 km/s), completing an orbit roughly every 90 minutes — around 16 orbits a day.
Can I see the ISS with the naked eye?
Yes. It is one of the brightest objects in the sky, appearing as a steady, fast-moving point of light with no blinking.
When is the best time to see the ISS?
The hour or two after sunset or before sunrise, when it is sunlit against a dark sky. AstroSat shows the exact times for your location.
How often does the ISS pass over me?
Most places get several visible passes per week, usually clustered over a few consecutive evenings and then none for a while.
Why does the ground track look like a wave?
The station orbits in a plane tilted 51.6° to the equator while the Earth turns underneath it. Flattening that onto a rectangular map turns the circular orbit into a sine wave that shifts west each time round.