- Communications satellite
- Military
- CHINASAT 1A
- NORAD 37804
- 2011-047A
- Geostationary
Current orbit
View on live mapOne orbit takes a day, as long as the Earth takes to turn, so Zhongxing 1A keeps above 12° E of the equator and never crosses the sky.
It never rises or sets
Zhongxing 1A turns with the Earth, standing over one longitude of the equator. From anywhere it can be seen at all it is up day and night, in the same direction, so there is no pass to wait for.
No brightness has been published for Zhongxing 1A, 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 wait for: it never crosses the sky. From the half of the Earth it stands over it keeps the same point day and night, and from the other half it never rises at all.
Timeline
- Launch
Launched, on the day GCAT records. Source
Summary
Over the Republic of the Congo LIVE
Where is Zhongxing 1A?
At 7:26:51 PM UTC Zhongxing 1A was over the Republic of the Congo (4° S, 12° E), 35,844 km up, standing over one longitude of the equator and in sunlight.
What is Zhongxing 1A?
A communications satellite in geostationary orbit, in space since Sep 18, 2011.
Can I see Zhongxing 1A?
No, not with the naked eye, and it never crosses the sky: Zhongxing 1A stands over 12° E of the equator; the dishes and receivers on the ground use its signals instead.
General
- Operator
- General Armaments Dept. of the PLA
- State
- China, People's Republic of
- Built by
- Chinese Academy of Space Technology, Beijing (CASC 5th Acad)
- What it is
- Communications satellite
- Military
- Yes: a defence organisation flies it
- Launched
- Mass
- about 5.3 t
- Operating
- Orbit class
- Geostationary
From GCAT, Jonathan McDowell’s general catalogue, licensed CC BY 4.0: the operator, the state, the manufacturer, what it is for, that a defence organisation flies it, the launch day, the mass, and whether it is operating. The orbit class is read from its current elements.
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 7:26 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 7:26 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 4° S, 12° E
- Altitude
- 35,844 km
- Speed
- 3.07 km/s (11,063 km/h)
- Course
- Stands over 12° E
- Light
- In sunlight
- Inclination
- 4.1°
- Orbital period
- 1,439.4 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 1
- This orbit
- 35,840 to 35,863 km
- In view from
- Within 7,950 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 8, 2026, 4:10 AM, 15 hours old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 8, 2026, 4:10 AM, 15 hours old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Zhongxing 1A, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Zhongxing 1A 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 1A | 35,840 to 35,863 km | 1,439 minutes | about 5.3 t | 2011 |
| 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 |
| Hotbird 13F | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 4.5 t | 2022 |
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 8, 2026, 4:10 AM, 15 hours old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "CHINASAT 1A",
"OBJECT_ID": "2011-047A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-08T04:10:42.354912",
"MEAN_MOTION": 1.00044382,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.00027084,
"INCLINATION": 4.0843,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 76.4885,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 222.1867,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 183.911,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 37804,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 2877,
"BSTAR": 0,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": 5.4e-7,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}