POLAR

POLAR is an active satellite operated by United States, launched on 1996-02-24 from Vandenberg SFB, California. With over 30 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) at altitudes between 6,487 km and 51,738 km with an inclination of 79.8°. It travels at approximately 12,066 km/h (3.35 km/s), completing one full orbit every 18 hours 29 minutes — that’s roughly 1.30 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.6376 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. It is part of the Geo Protected Plus constellation group. Orbital Radar tracks POLAR in real time using the latest two-line element set (TLE) data, providing live position, altitude, speed and orbital path updated continuously.

POLAR follows a Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO), which sweeps between a low-altitude perigee and a very high apogee. HEO satellites spend most of their orbital period near apogee, moving slowly at high altitude — effectively loitering over a region of interest. This makes HEO ideal for high-latitude communications (Molniya and Tundra orbits), early-warning missile detection (SBIRS), and space science missions that need to sample different regions of the magnetosphere. The large difference between perigee (6,487 km) and apogee (51,738 km) for this object illustrates the characteristic elliptical shape.