Dubai (AE)

The local space context of Dubai as this registry holds it — the catalogued human footprint on the ground around it, the orbits that can pass overhead, and the geostationary belt seen from here.

position25.077° N, 55.309° EGeoNames (geonames.org) — CC BY 4.0
population3,790,000 inhabitantsGeoNames (geonames.org) — CC BY 4.0

On the ground within 1000 km

Launch sites — 10 within 1000 km

sitedistance · bearingpositionsource layer
Bandar-e-Jask, Hormozgan256 km ENE (75°)25.644° N, 57.774° Egcat-sites
US Navy interceptor launch point, Aegis ships, Arabian Sea394 km WNW (304°)27.000° N, 52.000° Egcat-sites
US Navy interceptor launch point, Aegis ships, Persian Gulf394 km WNW (304°)27.000° N, 52.000° Egcat-sites
Unknown PrSM launch location, Persian Gulf481 km WNW (297°)27.000° N, 51.000° Egcat-sites
South Shiraz Missile Base562 km NNW (331°)29.464° N, 52.488° Egcat-sites
Chabahar Space Center600 km E (88°)25.141° N, 61.272° Egcat-sites
Etlaq Spaceport652 km SSE (158°)19.640° N, 57.678° Egcat-sites
Umm Qasr (Um Qassir)912 km NW (309°)30.050° N, 47.950° Egcat-sites
Dasht-E-Kabir, Iran (Khatami Air Base?)917 km NNW (339°)32.750° N, 51.850° Egcat-sites
Mobile launchers in Basra region953 km NW (311°)30.500° N, 47.800° Egcat-sites

Nuclear detonations — 1 within 1000 km

sitedistance · bearingpositionsource layer
PAKISTAN test 2450964922 km ENE (64°)28.490° N, 63.780° Enuclear-tests

Distances are great-circle on a sphere of mean radius 6,371 km; bearings are initial true bearings from the city. Each position is the source catalogue's own, read back from the registry.

What can pass overhead

Of the 23,251 artificial objects the registry places in Earth orbit on 2026-10-18, 20,576 fly orbits whose ground track reaches 25.077° N, so they can pass directly overhead; the other 2,675 never reach this latitude.

space stationinclinationcan pass overhead
Bai Xiang85.0°yes
International Space Station (+3 docked records)51.6°yes
Kosmos-38255.9°yes
Tianhe41.5°yes

Computed: an orbit's equatorial inclination bounds the latitudes its track reaches (inclination i, or 180° − i when retrograde), from the orbital elements the registry holds. «Can pass overhead» is geometry, not a schedule — when, and whether it is lit and visible, depends on the hour.

The geostationary belt from here

The geostationary belt arcs across the southern sky and stands 60.7° above the horizon due south — the elevation to aim at for a satellite at this city's own longitude. Computed: spherical Earth (equatorial radius 6,378.137 km), circular orbit of one sidereal day (42,164 km); good to a few tenths of a degree.

What this page does not know