- Communications satellite
- STTW-5
- NORAD 21833
- 1991-088A
- Highly elliptical orbit
Current orbit
View on live mapOrbit began over the Atlantic Ocean
Orbit ends over the Pacific Ocean
Sunlit since
Enters the Earth’s shadow
In view from you
Nobody watches Zhongxing 4 go over, but a receiver still asks whether it is above the horizon. Say where you are and this card answers.
Your position is rounded to about a kilometre and sent only to the Orbinauts API, to find the pass.
No brightness has been published for Zhongxing 4, so it is not a naked-eye satellite and no city page carries pass times for it. Nothing here estimates one.
Seeing it
There is nothing to go outside for: it is too faint for the naked eye. What reaches you from it reaches a dish or an antenna, not an eye.
Timeline
- Launch
Launched, on the day GCAT records. Source
Summary
Over the People's Republic of China LIVE
Where is Zhongxing 4?
At 7:03:58 PM UTC Zhongxing 4 was over the People's Republic of China (24.6° N, 104.3° E), 25,887 km up, moving at 2.9 km/s and in sunlight.
What is Zhongxing 4?
A communications satellite in a highly elliptical orbit, in space since Dec 28, 1991.
Can I see Zhongxing 4?
No, not with the naked eye: no brightness has been published for Zhongxing 4, and nothing here estimates one; the dishes and receivers on the ground use its signals instead.
General
- Operator
- China Satellite Communications Crop.
- State
- China, People's Republic of
- Built by
- Chinese Academy of Space Technology, Beijing (CASC 5th Acad)
- What it is
- Communications satellite
- Launched
- Mass
- 460 kg
- Operating
- Orbit class
- Highly elliptical orbit
From GCAT, Jonathan McDowell’s general catalogue, licensed CC BY 4.0: the operator, the state, the manufacturer, what it is for, the launch day, the mass, and whether it is operating. The orbit class is read from its current elements.
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 7:03 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 7:03 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 24.6° N, 104.3° E
- Altitude
- 25,887 km
- Speed
- 2.9 km/s (10,422 km/h)
- Course
- north
- Light
- In sunlight until 3:43 AM UTC
- Inclination
- 32.2°
- Orbital period
- 632.6 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 2.28
- This orbit
- 2,030 to 34,038 km
- In shadow
- 54 minutes of each orbit
- In view from
- Within 7,650 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 6, 2026, 2:00 AM, 2 days old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 6, 2026, 2:00 AM, 2 days old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Zhongxing 4, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Zhongxing 4 has been reported publicly in the past thirty days.
From Space-Track’s public conjunction messages; the latest report was issued Nov 8, 2026, 1:11 PM, 3 hours old. Only approaches serious enough to be reported publicly are listed: within three days and, for two bodies near the Earth, closer than a kilometre with a chance of a collision above 1 in 10,000, the level at which NASA moves the ISS.
Beside the others
| Satellite | Typical altitude | Orbital period | Mass | In space since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zhongxing 4 | 2,030 to 34,038 km | 633 minutes | 460 kg | 1991 |
| BlueWalker 3 | 443 to 453 km | 94 minutes | about 1.5 t | 2022 |
| Hispasat 30W-6 | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 6.1 t | 2018 |
| Amazonas Nexus | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 4.1 t | 2023 |
| ARSAT-1 | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 3 t | 2014 |
| Astra 1N | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 5.3 t | 2011 |
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 6, 2026, 2:00 AM, 2 days old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "STTW-5",
"OBJECT_ID": "1991-088A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-06T02:00:58.308480",
"MEAN_MOTION": 2.27645612,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.65558874,
"INCLINATION": 32.1877,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 32.2842,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 260.3075,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 25.3943,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 21833,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 36247,
"BSTAR": 0,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": -0.00000111,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}