XRISM
Live position
This mission operates in deep space — beyond the regime where SGP4 and CelesTrak TLEs apply. Real-time positioning needs NASA's JPL Horizons system, which isn't wired up yet. We track ISS, Tiangong, Hubble, and Chandra in low/high Earth orbit instead.
About this mission
JAXA–NASA X-ray space observatory combining high spectral resolution (Resolve calorimeter) with wide-field imaging (Xtend). Designed to study supermassive black holes, galaxy clusters, and stellar remnants.
This mission has been operating for 964 days (2.6 years) — and it's still going.
Space telescopes observe from above the atmosphere — giving us the sharpest views of the cosmos.
Timeline
X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission — 3D Model
Procedural representation based on spacecraft class. Not to scale.
Other missions to Earth orbit
Tiangong Space Station
The Tiangong space station is a space station in low Earth orbit (LEO). It is operated by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) as part of the China Manned Space Program. It is a space laboratory that hosts scientific experiments involving bioastronautics, microgravity physics, materials science and space technology. The station is permanently crewed, hosting a standard crew of three astronauts and six during handovers. Alongside the International Space Station (ISS), it is one of the only two currently operational space stations.
CHEOPS
ESA's first exoplanet mission — a precision photometer that measures sub-Neptune and Neptune-sized planets transiting bright nearby stars, determining their radii to better than 10%.
Chandra X-ray Observatory
The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), is a Flagship-class space telescope launched aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia during STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. Chandra is sensitive to X-ray sources 100 times fainter than any previous X-ray telescope, enabled by the high angular resolution of its mirrors. Since the Earth's atmosphere absorbs the vast majority of X-rays, they are not detectable from Earth-based telescopes; therefore space-based telescopes are required to make these observations. Chandra is an Earth satellite in a 64-hour orbit, and its mission is ongoing as of 2025. Chandra is one of the Great Observatories, along with the Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (1991–2000), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (2003–2020). The telescope is named after the Nobel Prize-winning Indian-American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Its mission is similar to that of ESA's XMM-Newton spacecraft, also launched in 1999 but the two telescopes have different design foci, as Chandra has a much higher angular resolution and XMM-Newton higher spectroscopy throughput.