TIROS 5
Country: United States of America
Live Position
Ground Track · Last 90 Minutes
Upcoming Passes · Over Your Location
About This Satellite
TIROS-5 launched on June 19, 1962 to extend experimental weather observations through the Northern Hemisphere hurricane season. Its orbit was inclined by about 58 degrees, compared with about 48 degrees for earlier TIROS flights. The change made higher-latitude observations possible, including pictures of northern ice breakup.
The higher inclination was intentional; the elliptical orbit was not
NASA attributes the departure from the intended circular orbit to a Delta ground-guidance failure. These are separate design and launch outcomes: increasing inclination changes the latitudes accessible to the satellite, whereas an elliptical orbit changes its distance from Earth during each revolution. The achieved orbit should not be presented as an intentionally elliptical weather-mapping strategy.
Installed radiation sensors did not become working experiments
Three radiation sensors failed preflight checks and were disconnected before launch. A list of hardware inherited from TIROS-4 can therefore overstate TIROS-5's usable payload. Its weather-picture achievements should not be taken as evidence that those radiometers supplied a corresponding radiation record.
Mission reference: NASA Science: TIROS-5 inclination, guidance anomaly and disconnected radiometers. Editorial review: .
The image tally has a documented duration discrepancy
Table 3-190 in NASA's Historical Data Book reports 58,226 images over 321 days. NASA's shorter TIROS overview instead lists 161 days. This profile uses the detailed table for the image tally and its associated interval, while retaining the disagreement rather than inventing an exact shutdown date. Neither duration describes how long the satellite remained in orbit.
Reference: NASA Historical Data Book, table 3-190: TIROS-5 image count and 321-day interval.
Broader storm coverage was a practical result
The historical table credits TIROS-5 with spotting five tropical storms worldwide during August and links its higher inclination to improved August-September hurricane-season coverage. That result illustrates the value of extending the observing region. It is a count of storms identified in historical observations, not a claim that five storms were monitored continuously or that a satellite picture alone supplied a complete forecast.
Reference: NASA Historical Data Book: TIROS-5 tropical-storm observations.
Reading this orbital snapshot
Based on TLE epoch: 2026-09-05. Estimated altitude ranges from 560 km at perigee to 822 km at apogee, a difference of 261 km. The orbital period is about 98.6 minutes. Eccentricity 0.01848 shows why a single altitude cannot describe the whole path. In a two-body approximation, perigee speed is 1.04 times apogee speed. These are mean-element estimates, not instantaneous measurements. Distance per orbit uses an ellipse approximation.
Saved build snapshot. If a valid TLE is retrieved, this explanation and the orbit panel update together. Otherwise this dated snapshot is retained.
Ground track is not sensor coverage
An inclination of 58.09 degrees implies approximate geocentric ground-track limits of 58.1 degrees north and south. This is a prograde orbit, moving in the same general direction as Earth rotation. The plotted line marks the point beneath the object. It does not represent camera coverage, radio reception, or a guaranteed visible pass.
Accuracy and missing information
The introductory record describes the build snapshot. The orbital snapshot explanation and orbit panel share any successfully retrieved TLE; check the displayed epoch. Reentered objects retain historical data only. Mission history is not rewritten by TLE updates. TLE/SGP4 positions are predictions and can change after maneuvers or updated observations. The 14-day stale-data cutoff is a display safeguard, not an accuracy guarantee. Local passes are geometric predictions, not a visibility forecast. No verified operator or mission status means unknown, not active. Do not use this catalog for collision avoidance or operational flight decisions.
Catalog sources: CelesTrak SATCAT: NORAD 309 · GCAT: S00309 (source update 2026 Sep 4 2345:57). Supplementary metadata: SatNOGS DB, retrieved 2026-09-05T12:57:25.375Z. Page assembled 2026-09-15. GCAT phase codes describe trajectory phases, not mission health.
Learn more: TLE data · Perigee and apogee · Ground tracks · JOT (Jewawud Live Orbital Map)