Aqua

Aqua is catalogued in this registry as a payload, held in the frame of Earth, from GCAT — artificial space objects.

Registry id GCAT_S27424 · source layer gcat · provenance PROCESSED — derived deterministically from source catalogues (unit, frame and epoch conversions, cross-source reconciliation) — no value invented

Exists from 2002-05-04 09:54:57 UTC (JD 2452398.91317) — no end date is recorded.

Open Aqua in the live scene → The scene composes a position for any date and is where a figure becomes a picture. It downloads the whole catalogue first: measured against the built product, an object outside the core resolves after about 16 s over a local network and about 147 s over a 4 Mbit link, having transferred roughly 70 MB. If you cannot wait that long, this page is the answer.

Sources disagree about this object

The registry keeps every source's value rather than choosing one and discarding the rest. If you quote a figure below, quoting it alone would hide a real disagreement between catalogues.

Measured quantities

QuantityValueUncertaintySource
Radius8.5 mno published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects
Mass3078 kgno published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects

Each row carries its own uncertainty and its own source. Where a row says no uncertainty is published, that is what the catalogue says — it is not a claim that the value is exact.

Orbit

These are the sourced elements. This page does not print a position: a position is a function of time, and a single one dated to the bake would be stale the moment it was read. The registry composes a position for any date, past or future, from these elements — open the scene below and set the clock.

QuantityValueUncertaintySource
Semi-major axis7064221 m (7064.221 km)no published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects ⚖ 1 source disagree — 7050500 m (GCAT satcat (orbit as of ODate))
Eccentricity0.0001073 no published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects ⚖ 1 source disagree — 0.000921920431175094 (GCAT satcat (orbit as of ODate))
Inclination1.842495 rad (105.5672°)no published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects
Longitude of ascending node4.449985 rad (254.9654°)no published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects
Argument of periapsis1.500748 rad (85.98653°)no published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects
Mean anomaly at epoch0.025314 rad (1.4504°)no published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects

Elements are expressed in the frame of EARTH at epoch 2026-10-05 13:43:24 UTC (JD 2461319.07180598). Gravitational parameter of the primary: 3.9861389×10^14 m³/s². Semi-major axis in astronomical units uses the IAU 2012 definition (1 au = 1.495978707×10^11 m exactly).

Classification

Kindpayload
Originartificial (made by humans)
Operating nationUSA
Operator classgovernmental
PurposeEarth Observation
User classGovernment
Launch site codeV
Launch vehicleDelta 7920-10L
Launch outcomesuccess
UN registrationregistered with the United Nations — USA · ST/SG/SER.E/418
Separated fromGCAT_S27425 on 2002-05-04 10:53:59 UTC (JD 2452398.9541666666)
3-D modelcarries a published mesh

The catalogue's own note

S27424 #27424 2002-022A · aka NAIF154 · GSFC/US · mfr TRW · bus T-330 · op LEO/S · dry 2976 kg · category IMG · class C · program EOS · elements MEASURED (Celestrak GP); GCAT a/e as of ODate kept as alternate [GCAT]

Reproduced as the source wrote it. Author-year citations link to their DOI where one is registered.

What this registry does not know about it

These are absences in the catalogues aggregated here, not measurements of zero, and not statements that the quantity is unknown to science:

Where this record comes from

DatabaseGCAT — artificial space objects
AuthorityGCAT — General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (J. McDowell)
Addresshttps://planet4589.org/space/gcat/tsv
LicenceCC-BY 4.0 — https://planet4589.org/space/gcat/
How it enteredRAW snapshot via scripts/ingest-gcat.ts
Snapshot2026-10-22
Coverage99,132 objects; 2674 multisegment; 349 landed; debris archived, off by default; 1,801 failed-to-orbit objects placed at their launch sites (existence-windowed to their fall); uncatalogued (CSO/analyst) objects included; 38 marked-erroneous (ERR) phantom entries skipped; the extended US catalogue (SATCAT ≥ 100000) read as satcat; ISON/Vimpel optical objects absent from the US catalogue included (vimcat, keyed by V-JCAT; 1,035 rows naming a US-catalogue object folded onto it); 24,166 suborbital payloads (rcat, apogee ≥ 80 km) placed at their launch sites, existence-windowed launch → fall; their 61,509 stages and components archived, not baked; 23,018 carry a MEASURED Ω/ω/M₀ from a Celestrak GP join, the rest a deterministic placeholder spread; launch log joined by Launch_Tag → site:/lv:/outcome: facets on 80,406 objects (73,418 with minute-precise launch time); 103 deep-space trajectories refined by JPL Horizons navigation arcs (piecewise osculating elements, heliocentric cruise spans only)

This database remains the property of its owners and is reused under its own licence. If you quote a value from this page, name that database alongside SolarSystemRegistry.org.