GOES 3
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About This Satellite
GOES 3, launched in June 1978, monitored weather over the Americas before being retired to a communications role, serving Pacific data relay for many years.
Source: Wikipedia — GOES 3 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
GOES 3 is a cataloged satellite tracked under NORAD ID 10953 with international designator 78062A. According to the GCAT master catalog, it was built by FORDA, on the SMS platform, with a launch mass of about 293 kg, with a shape described as Cyl. According to the TLE snapshot used when this page was generated (2026-08-18), its Inclined GSO orbit had an apogee of about 36.057 km and a perigee near 36.043 km, with an inclination of 6.77° and a period of roughly 1449.2 minutes; at apogee its speed was about 3.06 km/s. Positions on this page are near-real-time SGP4 predictions propagated from the latest two-line element (TLE) data.
In the TLE snapshot used to generate this page, GOES 3's apogee was 36.057 km, where its speed was about 3.06 km/s, completing about 1.0 orbits of Earth per day. Track it live on the map above or in the JOT orbital map.