Daily brief · Thursday, 29 October 2026 (UTC)
29 Oct: FLEX (ESA) is holding station about 58 km from SENTINEL-3A (EU), a British satellite is closing on a US military satellite and a Russian satellite is closing on a military satellite from Algeria.
Top stories
- Shadowing another country's satellite
Holding a steady distance in another satellite's orbit takes deliberate station-keeping. Same orbit plane and height, at a steady distance, since 28 Oct or before.
- Closing on another country's military satellite
In nearly the same orbit and getting closer. Most approaches are drift; the pair page shows the history.
- Closing on another country's military satellite
In nearly the same orbit and getting closer. Most approaches are drift; the pair page shows the history.
Over conflict zones in the next 24 hours
24 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
1In nearly the same orbit as another country's satellite, and getting closer, with at least one of the two still working.
Routine
- 4 pairs of one country's satellites drifting closer (GLONASS).
- 1 pair of satellites no longer working drifting closer.
- 2 satellites that aren't military changed orbit.
- Nothing new: military orbit changes, possible rendezvous, geostationary moves, military satellites leaving public tracking, breakups and countries busier than usual.
Also
Built 30 Oct, 00:33 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
2026-11-022026-11-012026-10-312026-10-302026-10-282026-10-272026-10-262026-10-252026-10-242026-10-232026-10-222026-10-212026-10-202026-10-19