The local space context of Natal 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.
| position | 5.795° S, 35.209° W | GeoNames (geonames.org) — CC BY 4.0 |
|---|---|---|
| population | 896,708 inhabitants | GeoNames (geonames.org) — CC BY 4.0 |
| site | distance · bearing | position | source layer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Centro de Lancamento da Barreira do Inferno, Natal, Rio Grande N, Brasil | 21 km WSW (248°) | 5.866° S, 35.383° W | gcat-sites |
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.
Of the 23,251 artificial objects the registry places in Earth orbit on 2026-10-18, 22,111 fly orbits whose ground track reaches 5.795° S, so they can pass directly overhead; the other 1,140 never reach this latitude.
| space station | inclination | can pass overhead |
|---|---|---|
| Bai Xiang | 85.0° | yes |
| International Space Station (+3 docked records) | 51.6° | yes |
| Kosmos-382 | 55.9° | yes |
| Tianhe | 41.5° | 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 arcs across the northern sky and stands 83.2° above the horizon due north — 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.
/sim.html#sel=EARTH&tn=1,
then stand at Natal in Stargazing — it computes which satellites are visible now, from this
registry, in your browser.