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Daily brief · Monday, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

26 Oct: A Chinese military satellite is closing on a satellite from Montenegro, a US military satellite is closing on a Chinese satellite and a Chinese military satellite, TJS-19, made a large orbit change.

Top stories

  1. Military satellite closing on another country's
    ChinaMontenegroGAOFEN-14 02 is closing on LUCA (RS90S): 466 km a day ago, 189 km now

    In nearly the same orbit and getting closer. Most approaches are drift; the pair page shows the history.

  2. Military satellite closing on another country's
    USAChinaWGS F4 (USA 233) is closing on CHINASAT 12: 523 km a day ago, 474 km now

    In nearly the same orbit and getting closer. Most approaches are drift; the pair page shows the history.

  3. Large military orbit change
    ChinaTJS-19 changed orbit: orbit raised by 117 km, tilt changed by 0.01°

    A large change in orbit, confirmed by the next public orbit update.

  4. Large military orbit change
    USALDPE-2 changed orbit: orbit lowered by 32 km

    A large change in orbit, confirmed by the next public orbit update.

Over conflict zones in the next 24 hours

2

4 or more of one country's working military satellites, from different launches, over places where fighting was recorded this year, at once. Passes are fixed by orbits days ahead, so a cluster is usually a coincidence.

Closing on another country's satellite

5

In nearly the same orbit as another country's satellite, and getting closer, with at least one of the two still working.

Military satellites that changed orbit

6

Confirmed by the next public orbit update.

Geostationary relocations

1

Working satellites 36,000 km up that left their slot or stopped at a new one, from their daily positions. One stopping beside another country's satellite is named.

Routine

Also

Built 27 Oct, 00:30 UTC from the event log: what overhead24 detected that day, in its own words. Sources: Space-Track.org (USSPACECOM) (orbit data and re-entries); GCAT (J. McDowell, planet4589.org/space/gcat) (owners and military class, CC BY 4.0); Launch Library 2 (The Space Devs) (launches); UCDP (where fighting was recorded, CC BY 4.0). Worked out from public orbit data, accurate to a few kilometres and less the older the data. Not for collision avoidance, navigation or targeting. Satellites pass over every country: being overhead says nothing about what a satellite is doing.

Earlier briefs

2026-11-022026-11-012026-10-312026-10-302026-10-292026-10-282026-10-272026-10-252026-10-242026-10-232026-10-222026-10-212026-10-202026-10-19