A 3D viewer of the International Space Station (ISS). In LIVE mode, the ISS position, Sun, Moon and Earth's day/night are reproduced from real astronomical data, right now. Drag or touch to look around freely.
Use “Full / Modules / Arrays” on the panel to switch the camera
LIVE mode (on by default)
Synced to the real current ISS position: a glowing marker on the ground point plus latitude/longitude, altitude, speed and place name
Smoothly tracked with orbit propagation (SGP4). Cyan line = past ground track ／ orange line = the path for the next ~90 minutes
The Sun is synced to real time too = the true day/night terminator. It is normal for the ISS to look dark on the night side
The Moon is placed in its real direction (spin the view around to find it)
Panel controls
Sync to live position (LIVE)
ON = sync to the real position ／ OFF switches to “orbit mode” with a spinning Earth
Orbit speed
How fast the surface streams by in orbit mode (disabled during LIVE)
Sun angle
Adjust the Sun direction manually (auto-synced to real time during LIVE = disabled)
Auto-track sun
The solar arrays automatically face the Sun (turn off for manual)
Arm / panel angle
Manually set the array direction and tilt
Show Earth / stars
Toggle the background
FAQ
Where is the ISS right now?
LIVE mode shows its current position with a glowing marker plus latitude/longitude, altitude, speed and place name (computed from TLE with SGP4).
Can you see the ISS with the naked eye?
Yes. Before dawn or after dusk, when the ISS is sunlit and your sky is dark, it looks like a bright moving point. Use “Pass predictions” to find your next chance.
How high and fast is it?
About 400 km altitude and ~27,600 km/h. It orbits Earth in ~90 minutes, about 16 times a day.
How often does it pass overhead?
A few times a day depending on your location; naked-eye passes are limited to dawn/dusk when conditions line up.
Is it free? Any sign-up?
Completely free, no sign-up, runs in the browser (installable as a PWA).
How accurate is the ISS model?
It is handmade from photos of the real station taken since 2021. The layout and relative sizes of the main modules, the solar arrays (including the six newer iROSA arrays added since 2021) and the radiators follow the real thing. Small equipment is omitted, and the docked spacecraft (Crew Dragon, Soyuz, Progress) change over time, so they are representative. Which wings carry an iROSA follows NASA's 2023 configuration diagram.
Where does the data come from?
Position from wheretheiss.at; place names from BigDataCloud. The clouds come from Live Cloud Maps and show the real clouds, rebuilt every three hours from weather-satellite data (Contains modified EUMETSAT data). If they can't be loaded, a sample cloud map is shown instead. Clouds are removed around the poles, which the satellites can't image. The Milky Way in the background is the Milky Way layer of an all-sky map NASA built from 1.7 billion stars in star catalogs (Hipparcos-2, Tycho-2, Gaia DR2); in LIVE mode it turns to match its actual orientation (the small individual star dots are illustrative). Image: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Gaia DR2: ESA/Gaia/DPAC.
This site (ISS 3D Viewer) never asks for logins or personal information. To understand traffic we use cookie-free measurement (Vercel Web Analytics), which collects no personally identifying information.
1. Communication with external services
When “Sync to live position (LIVE)” is enabled (on by default; turning it off stops this), the site communicates with the services below. Connection information such as your IP address may be sent to each provider.
BigDataCloud — converting latitude/longitude to a place name
* The latitude/longitude fetched and shown is the ISS's position, not the viewer's location.
In addition, regardless of the LIVE setting, the site connects once to Live Cloud Maps (clouds.matteason.co.uk) when the page opens, to fetch the latest cloud image. Only the connection information needed to fetch the image is sent; no location is sent.
2. Location for pass predictions
If you allow use of your location in “Pass predictions”, the coordinates are used only for calculations on your device and are never sent or stored externally (choosing a city is likewise processed on-device).
3. Hosting
This site is hosted on Vercel, which may record access logs.
4. Disclosure to third parties
We do not collect, store, sell, or provide users' information to third parties.
Last updated: September 2026 ／ Operated by Stellars Lab