OrbitKE

Tracking satellites, the ISS & more over Kenya 🇰🇪🛰️ Real data, real sources, plain language. Did-you-know Wednesdays.

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

Sky traffic ✈️ Those small planes over Nairobi aren't only safari hops. Wilson Airport is home to AMREF Flying Doctors — flying medical missions across East Africa since 1957. Next time you hear a light aircraft at night, it might be a medevac.

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

Kenya 🇰🇪 x Italy 🇮🇹 in space: Italy's Ambassador Vincenzo Del Monaco met @SpaceAgencyKE DG Maj. Gen. Hillary Kipkosgey at KSA's Regional Centre for Earth Observation (Nairobi) to deepen cooperation on Earth observation, satellite data & skills. Partners since the Malindi days.

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

Being on the equator = Mercury bonus 🌍 Mercury never strays far from the Sun, so it's usually lost in twilight. From Kenya, the evening planets' path (ecliptic) stands steeply above the western horizon, lifting Mercury higher than from Europe. Best evening: Oct 12.

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

DID YOU KNOW? The ISS isn't floating — it's FALLING. Constantly. 🌍 It moves sideways so fast (~7.7 km every second) that the ground curves away beneath it as quickly as it falls. That endless fall = an orbit. Astronauts float because they fall with it.

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

Myth alert 🚨 'Rockets push against the air to fly.' Sio kweli! Rockets work BETTER in the vacuum of space. They throw hot gas out the back — and by Newton's 3rd law, the rocket goes the other way. No air needed. That's why they work in orbit 🚀

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

Round 2 🌙🪐 This morning at 5 AM the Moon has slid over to JUPITER — ~4° apart, low in the east. Jupiter is the brightest 'star' in the morning sky. Yesterday Mars, today Jupiter. Moon inafanya visits 😄

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

Did you know the first X-ray astronomy satellite launched from KENYA? 🇰🇪 'Uhuru' (Explorer 42) lifted off from the San Marco platform off Malindi on 12 Dec 1970 — Kenya's 7th Independence Day ��� hence the name. It mapped ~339 X-ray sources. #WorldSpaceWeek

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

Wake-up call 🌙🔴 Right now (5–6 AM) look EAST-NORTH-EAST: the Moon and Mars sit just ~2.5° apart, about 40° up. Mars is the orange 'star'. Jupiter shines brighter, lower & to their right. Tuma picha! 📸

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

Saturn is at opposition TODAY 🪐 — Earth sits between Saturn and the Sun, so it rises at sunset (~6:25 PM) in the EAST and stays up all night. Rings tilted ~9° this year. Any small telescope shows them. Tomorrow 5 AM: the Moon sits right next to Mars 👀

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

World Space Week starts today 🌍🚀 (Oct 4–10). 2026 theme: 'Rocket Revolution' — launch has gone from a few government programmes to dozens of companies & reusable rockets. Fun fact: Kenya's coast hosted real rocket launches from 1967. Tomorrow we tell that story 👀

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

WEEK 1 RECAP Crew-13 to the ISS (@NASA), Starship's first orbit, Andromeda, and Kenya's own mystery stones at Namoratunga. Plus: World Space Week starts TODAY.

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

Kenya's Stonehenge? 🪨 Namoratunga near Lake Turkana: in 1978 researchers (Lynch & Robbins, Science) proposed its 19 basalt pillars aligned with stars used in the Borana/Cushitic calendar. Later studies disputed it. Science = asking, testing, re-asking.

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

How does a Dragon capsule catch a space station moving at 28,000 km/h in under 9 hours? Short version: launch the instant Florida rotates under the ISS's orbit, then a few precise engine burns.

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

The farthest thing you can see with your bare eyes? The Andromeda Galaxy — ~2.5 million light-years away. From a dark site in Kenya it's a faint smudge in the north-east after ~9 PM this month. The light hitting your eye left before humans existed. #Andromeda

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

Starship finally made it to orbit 🛰️ Flight 14 (Sep 28) deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites — SpaceX says all 26 are healthy. One upper-stage engine was lost on ascent and the flight was shortened, but the orbital milestone stands. Kila V3 ~1 Tbps downlink 🤯

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

LAUNCH DAY 🚀 Crew-13 lifts off for the ISS today at 6:10 PM EAT from Cape Canaveral. On board: NASA's Jessica Watkins & Luke Delaney, Canada's Joshua Kutryk, Russia's Sergey Teteryatnikov. Planned docking under 9 hours later. #Crew13 #OrbitKE

[Yatharth Mann @yatharthmann]

Probably the best engineering team on Earth.

[Abdel Hamid Ahmed Hamdy @ahamdyos]

إيلون ماسك خلى الخيال حقيقة.
صاروخ Starship وصل المدار...وفتح بطنه ونزل ٢٦ قمر Starlink مرة واحدة، كأن الصاروخ بيطلع حبات من علبة PEZ!
علشان نتخيل صاروخ بحجم ناطحة سحاب تطلع للفضاء.... تدخل مدار الأرض وبعدها ترمي ٢٦ قمر صناعي في رحلة واحدة.
والأقما الجيل الجديد يعني أقوى بكتير من أجيال سابقة....
بقينا بنتفرج على المستقبل وهو بيتبني قدام عينينا.
مفيش حاجة اسمها مستحيل بالعلم

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

Live views of Starship in orbit brought to you by @Starlink

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

We also learned our own galaxy has a 'year' — the Sun takes ~230 million years to loop the Milky Way's center — and met Kilimia, the Kiswahili name for the Pleiades used to predict rain. That's Week 3. Same time next week for what's coming up. #OrbitKE #Kenya

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

Closer to home: Kenya is planning its own spaceport at Kipini on the coast — KSA is pursuing a commercial launch site, with the equator making launches cheaper and more efficient. @SpaceAgencyKE

[OrbitKE @OrbitKE254]

Other things we tracked: 9 million people flew through JKIA in 2024 (6th-busiest airport in Africa), why shooting stars aren't stars, how TLEs tell us exactly where a satellite is, and why Kenya has some of the darkest skies on Earth.