- Earth-watching satellite
- FENGYUN 4B
- NORAD 48808
- 2021-047A
- Geostationary
Current orbit
View on live mapOne orbit takes a day, as long as the Earth takes to turn, so Feng Yun 4B keeps above 104.5° E of the equator and never crosses the sky.
It never rises or sets
Feng Yun 4B 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 Feng Yun 4B, 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 South China Sea LIVE
Where is Feng Yun 4B?
At 6:41:39 PM UTC Feng Yun 4B was over the South China Sea (0.1° S, 104.5° E), 35,773 km up, standing over one longitude of the equator and in sunlight.
What is Feng Yun 4B?
A satellite that watches the Earth in geostationary orbit, in space since Jun 2, 2021.
Can I see Feng Yun 4B?
No, not with the naked eye, and it never crosses the sky: Feng Yun 4B stands over 104.5° E of the equator; what people use is its pictures and measurements of the Earth.
General
- Operator
- National Satellite Meteorological Center
- State
- China, People's Republic of
- Built by
- Shanghai Inst. of Satellite Engineering (509 Res.Inst.)
- What it is
- Earth-watching satellite
- Launched
- Mass
- about 5.4 t
- Operating
- Yes
- 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, the launch day, the mass, and whether it is operating. The orbit class is read from its current elements.
Latest orbital data
- Position received
- 6:41 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 6:41 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 0.1° S, 104.5° E
- Altitude
- 35,773 km
- Speed
- 3.08 km/s (11,074 km/h)
- Course
- Stands over 104.5° E
- Light
- In sunlight
- Inclination
- 0.5°
- Orbital period
- 1,436.2 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 1
- This orbit
- 35,752 to 35,827 km
- In view from
- Within 7,940 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 6, 2026, 11:32 PM, 1 day old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 6, 2026, 11:32 PM, 1 day old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Feng Yun 4B, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Feng Yun 4B 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feng Yun 4B | 35,752 to 35,827 km | 1,436 minutes | about 5.4 t | 2021 |
| GOES-19 | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 5 t | 2024 |
| Meteosat-12 | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 3.8 t | 2022 |
| Meteosat-11 | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 2 t | 2015 |
| GOES-16 | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 5.2 t | 2016 |
| GOES-17 | 35,786 to 35,786 km | 1,436 minutes | about 5.2 t | 2018 |
Data and API
The current elements from Space-Track as an OMM object, epoch Nov 6, 2026, 11:32 PM, 1 day old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "FENGYUN 4B",
"OBJECT_ID": "2021-047A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-06T23:32:17.021184",
"MEAN_MOTION": 1.00265205,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.00088565,
"INCLINATION": 0.5101,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 81.5045,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 285.1306,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 137.1558,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 48808,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 2000,
"BSTAR": 0,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": -0.00000325,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}