How ISS.live works
ISS.live turns the public data feed from the International Space Station into something anyone can read: live video, where the station is, and what its systems are doing, second by second.
From orbit to your screen, live
- Space Station~420 km up, sampling thousands of sensors
- TDRS relayGeostationary relay satellites, ~36,000 km up
- White Sands → HoustonGround terminal in New Mexico, then Mission Control
- LightstreamerNASA's public telemetry proxy
- YouDecoded and plotted live by ISS.live
Relayed through TDRSS
The station sends its data through NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS). Everything passes through the White Sands ground terminal in New Mexico, then on to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
NASA republishes a subset of that telemetry through a service called Lightstreamer, which is what ISS.live listens to.
How often is data updated?
Some sensors change several times per second; others, like tank levels, move over hours. NASA sends every change as it happens, so what you see is as current as the public feed allows.
The LIVE pill in the top bar shows whether that feed is flowing right now.
Loss of signal
As the station orbits, it hands its link from one TDRS satellite to the next. During these handovers the data stops for a short while, and the indicator switches to LOS. It is usually when flight controllers in Houston top up their coffee.
The public stream is not mission-critical, so outages of days to a week can happen. Mission Control keeps receiving data as normal; only the public copy pauses.