Science
SUOMI NPP
Climate / Weather Bridge · NASA / NOAA
Right now
LiveIt moves every second. See exactly where it is — worked out from its orbit, on your own device — on the live 3D globe.
- Over
- —
- Altitude
- —
- Speed
- —
Named after Verner Suomi, the father of satellite meteorology, Suomi NPP bridges NASA science and NOAA operations. Its VIIRS instrument captures the sharpest daily global view of Earth's surface of any operational weather satellite — and its 'Black Marble' nighttime images became the most shared Earth science photographs ever published. It processes 4 terabytes of data every day.
Its orbit
- Orbit
- Low Earth Orbitcan appear as a fast-moving star at dawn or dusk
- Altitude
- 515–518 mi (829–833 km)
- Inclination
- 98.8°
- One orbit
- 101.4 minutes14.2 orbits a day
- NORAD ID
- 37849
- Int’l designator
- 2011-061A
- Launched
- 2011
Orbital elements from CelesTrak, as of 22 Sep 2026.
More science
- SUOMI-100Finnish University CubeSat (Independence Centennial + Plasma Brake)
- SUPERVIEW NEO-1 01Chinese Commercial Very High Resolution Imaging (Next-Gen)
- SUPERVIEW NEO-1 02Chinese Commercial Very High Resolution Imaging (Next-Gen)
- SUPERVIEW NEO-1 03Chinese Commercial Very High Resolution Imaging (Next-Gen)
- SUPERVIEW NEO-1 04Chinese Commercial Very High Resolution Imaging (Next-Gen)
- SUPERVIEW NEO-2 01Chinese Commercial Very High Resolution Imaging (Next-Gen)