- Communications satellite
- Military
- CHINASAT-3A
- NORAD 60179
- 2024-122A
- Geostationary
Current orbit
View on live mapOne orbit takes a day, as long as the Earth takes to turn, so Zhongxing 3A keeps above 101.6° E of the equator and never crosses the sky.
It never rises or sets
Zhongxing 3A 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 3A, 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 Indonesia LIVE
Where is Zhongxing 3A?
At 6:45:36 PM UTC Zhongxing 3A was over Indonesia (0° N, 101.6° E), 35,797 km up, standing over one longitude of the equator and in sunlight.
What is Zhongxing 3A?
A communications satellite in geostationary orbit, in space since Jun 29, 2024.
Can I see Zhongxing 3A?
No, not with the naked eye, and it never crosses the sky: Zhongxing 3A stands over 101.6° E of the equator; the dishes and receivers on the ground use its signals instead.
General
- Operator
- Strategic Support Troops
- State
- China, People's Republic of
- Built by
- Shanghai Inst. of Satellite Engineering (509 Res.Inst.)
- What it is
- Communications satellite
- Military
- Yes: a defence organisation flies it
- Launched
- Mass
- about 5 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, 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
- 6:45 PM UTC
- Station time (UTC)
- 6:45 PM UTC
- Latitude / longitude
- 0° N, 101.6° E
- Altitude
- 35,797 km
- Speed
- 3.07 km/s (11,066 km/h)
- Course
- Stands over 101.6° E
- Light
- In sunlight
- Inclination
- 0°
- Orbital period
- 1,436.1 minutes
- Orbits per day
- 1
- This orbit
- 35,776 to 35,798 km
- In view from
- Within 7,940 km of the point below it
- Elements epoch
- Nov 7, 2026, 6:21 AM, 1 day old
- Source
- Position from Space-Track orbital elements of Nov 7, 2026, 6:21 AM, 1 day old.
No operator publishes an ephemeris for Zhongxing 3A, so every position here comes from its orbital elements.
In orbit
- Close approaches
- No close approach to Zhongxing 3A 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 3A | 35,776 to 35,798 km | 1,436 minutes | about 5 t | 2024 |
| 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 7, 2026, 6:21 AM, 1 day old.
{
"OBJECT_NAME": "CHINASAT-3A",
"OBJECT_ID": "2024-122A",
"EPOCH": "2026-11-07T06:21:45.814176",
"MEAN_MOTION": 1.00272898,
"ECCENTRICITY": 0.0002617,
"INCLINATION": 0.032,
"RA_OF_ASC_NODE": 72.7255,
"ARG_OF_PERICENTER": 164.0571,
"MEAN_ANOMALY": 6.7326,
"EPHEMERIS_TYPE": 0,
"CLASSIFICATION_TYPE": "U",
"NORAD_CAT_ID": 60179,
"ELEMENT_SET_NO": 999,
"REV_AT_EPOCH": 874,
"BSTAR": 0,
"MEAN_MOTION_DOT": -0.0000031,
"MEAN_MOTION_DDOT": 0
}