
In addition to the website, there's an available app, and the navigation service OnStar, as well as Amazon Alexa, are programmed to help track Santa. The effort has become exceedingly high tech. The pilots rendezvous with Santa off the coast of Newfoundland to welcome him to North America and "escort him safely through North American airspace until he returns to the North Pole," according to NORAD. Visual confirmation is achieved by pilots in Air Force F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-22 Raptor fighter jets, as well as Canadian Air Force CF-18 Hornets. Officials then track him via satellites using infrared sensors, which can detect the signal coming off Rudolph's nose.

"As we have since 1955, this December 24th we are once again ready for our no-fail mission of tracking Santa, " VanHerck said.Īccording to NORAD, the command uses its North Warning System, with 47 installations across Alaska and northern Canada, to pick up Santa as soon as he leaves the North Pole. Glen VanHerck, NORAD commander, in a press release. "Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, NORAD defends North America by tracking airplanes, missiles, space launches and anything else that flies in or around the North American continent," said Air Force Gen. The website and app will show Santa's location in real time as he crosses the globe and reaches the U.S. 24.Īs with last year, pandemic protocols will be in place, with calls handled by volunteers all snug in their Who Houses. This year, nearly 600 volunteers will make the website and app come alive, answering phone calls made to 1-877-Hi-NORAD, or 1-87, beginning at 6:00 a.m. Shoup then directed others working that evening to say the command was tracking Santa, and a tradition was born. Not wanting to be a Scrooge, Shoup answered that he was not, but his command was keeping tabs on the red-suited, flying benefactor. The caller, a child, had seen a newspaper ad that accidentally had listed the command's number as a point of contact for Santa, according to the Air Force. Harry Shoup answered the phone at the command's predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center, and was asked if he was Santa. The launch adds a twist to NORAD's 66th year of tracking Santa - an effort that began in 1955 when Air Force Col. "There's so much riding on this," NASA administrator Bill Nelson told The Associated Press, "opening up just all kinds of new understanding and revelations about the universe." Santa, however, doesn't seem to scare NASA. So we are making absolutely sure that everything works," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for science missions, in announcing the delay.

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24, via its Santa Tracker website, a new Chrome extension or an Android app and its Google+, Facebook, and Twitter pages."We are absolutely not taking any risks with Webb because this is already risky enough. Google will begin tracking Santa at 2:00 a.m.
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24, via the new apps, its website, or email sent to ( is another Microsoft product.) People can also call the official Santa tracking phone number, 1-877-Hi-NORAD (1-87) for live updates. NORAD will begin tracking Santa at 2 a.m. On his sleigh, arguably the fastest airborne vehicle in the world, Santa whips from city to city delivering presents to millions of homes.”

“While we’ve been tracking Santa since 2004 with Google Earth, this year a team of dedicated Google Maps engineers built a new route algorithm to chart Santa’s journey around the world on Christmas Eve. Google isn’t hopping off the Santa sleigh ride, according to a blog post by Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps and Google Earth. “It was a mutually agreed-upon split,” Gaudin reports. Bill Lewis says it isn’t leaving Google because of any problems. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
