The location of (most) space objects has been tracked and published since the 1970s.
These locations are provided as a TLE, or Two-Line Element. TLEs provide the minimum data necessary to predict the future position and velocity of a space object. This tool allows you to use these TLEs to see where any space object has been, or will be in the future. It also shows the location of the Sun, the Moon and its phase, and uses the civilian, nautical, and astronomical twilight, and astronomical darkness to show day/night regions on Earth.
The concise nature of TLEs was key to their widespread adoption. In the early days they were shared by fax, postal service, or even read over the phone. Storage was handled using punch cards or magnetic tapes. However, the concise nature of TLEs has been, and remains a problem. The TLE format was designed for less than one-hundred thousand space objects, a number we are today moving rapidly towards. With this, TLEs are being replaced by a new system called Orbit Mean-Elements Message (OMM).
The International Space Station pictured from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour during a fly around of the orbiting lab that took place following its undocking from the Harmony moduleโs space-facing port on 8 Nov. 2021
This tool will automatically get the TLE of six satellites.
- International Space Station
- Tiangong (ๅคฉๅฎซ) Space Station
- UKube-1: Scotland’s first satellite
- Arktika-M 2: a Russian weather satellite launched in December 2023 to a Molniya orbit
- Meteosat Third Generation โ Imager 1 (MTG-I1): A European (EUMETSAT) weather satellite in Geostationary orbit
- QZS 1R (Michibiki 1R): a satellite in the Japanese space-based navigation system called QZSS (Quasi Zenith Satellite System) in a Geosynchronous orbit
The simulation epoch shows the last reported position of the satellite, and the tool show the position over Earth. You can vary the speed the simulation from this epoch, and the length of ground track that is shown.
As the last reported location (epoch) can be a few days old, clicking ‘Catch up’ allows the simulation to speed up until the current location of each is shown. Note, this tool uses a simplified perturbations model, SGP4, to ensure sufficient accuracy in the calculations.
If you want to find the location of any other satellite, you can get the last reported data / TLE from https://tle.ivanstanojevic.me/, copy and paste that into the tool, then select ‘Reset to Epoch’ to see where this last reported position was.
You can read more Nibbles in Space at 
SpaceProf.xyz 
. And, if you want to go into more depth at The International Handbook of Space Technology which is a definitive modern text on space technology with contributions from globally leading agency experts from NASA, ESA, JAXA, and CNES, as well as European and North American academics and industrialists. This comprehensive handbook provides an overview and a holistic understanding of the system-of-systems that is a modern spacecraft.