The local space context of Baotou as this registry holds it — the catalogued human footprint on the ground around it, the orbits that can pass overhead, and the geostationary belt seen from here.
| position | 40.652° N, 109.844° E | GeoNames (geonames.org) — CC BY 4.0 |
|---|---|---|
| population | 2,761,700 inhabitants | GeoNames (geonames.org) — CC BY 4.0 |
| site | distance · bearing | position | source layer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jilantai Missile Test Ground, Nei Monggol province | 373 km WSW (258°) | 39.850° N, 105.580° E | gcat-sites |
| Bayan Hot test range | 419 km WSW (241°) | 38.758° N, 105.608° E | gcat-sites |
| Taiyuan weixing fashe zhongxin | 424 km SE (145°) | 37.500° N, 112.600° E | gcat-sites |
| Sainshand meteorological rocket station | 472 km N (3°) | 44.890° N, 110.140° E | gcat-sites |
| 806th Brigade missile base, Huanglong, Shaanxi province | 578 km S (175°) | 35.474° N, 110.447° E | gcat-sites |
| 51St Base, Fengrun, Tangshan, Hebei province | 705 km E (95°) | 39.856° N, 118.093° E | gcat-sites |
| Space Pioneer Gongyi Static Test Site | 718 km SSE (156°) | 34.709° N, 113.051° E | gcat-sites |
| Alashan Youqi airport | 725 km W (260°) | 39.226° N, 101.548° E | gcat-sites |
| Jiuquan Space Center, Nei Monggol Zizhiqu, China | 803 km W (278°) | 41.310° N, 100.310° E | gcat-sites |
| 822 Brigade missile base, Laiwu, Shangdong province | 843 km ESE (123°) | 36.235° N, 117.716° E | gcat-sites |
| Huludao Shipyard test site | 923 km E (86°) | 40.700° N, 120.800° E | gcat-sites |
| Jinzhou missile base, Liaoning province | 953 km E (83°) | 41.190° N, 121.170° E | gcat-sites |
| Bohai launch area (Some Yellow Sea launches may also be here) | 977 km E (101°) | 38.500° N, 120.900° E | gcat-sites |
| site | distance · bearing | position | source layer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long March 2F/G | Shenzhou 24 | 804 km W (276°) | 40.958° N, 100.291° E | launchlibrary |
| Zhuque-3 | Flight 2 | 808 km W (275°) | 40.920° N, 100.251° E | launchlibrary |
| site | distance · bearing | position | source layer |
|---|---|---|---|
| MUSCOVY | 668 km SE (125°) | 37.017° N, 115.995° E | nuclear-tests |
Distances are great-circle on a sphere of mean radius 6,371 km; bearings are initial true bearings from the city. Each position is the source catalogue's own, read back from the registry.
Of the 23,251 artificial objects the registry places in Earth orbit on 2026-10-18, 19,967 fly orbits whose ground track reaches 40.652° N, so they can pass directly overhead; the other 3,284 never reach this latitude.
| space station | inclination | can pass overhead |
|---|---|---|
| Bai Xiang | 85.0° | yes |
| International Space Station (+3 docked records) | 51.6° | yes |
| Kosmos-382 | 55.9° | yes |
| Tianhe | 41.5° | yes |
Computed: an orbit's equatorial inclination bounds the latitudes its track reaches (inclination i, or 180° − i when retrograde), from the orbital elements the registry holds. «Can pass overhead» is geometry, not a schedule — when, and whether it is lit and visible, depends on the hour.
The geostationary belt arcs across the southern sky and stands 43.0° above the horizon due south — the elevation to aim at for a satellite at this city's own longitude. Computed: spherical Earth (equatorial radius 6,378.137 km), circular orbit of one sidereal day (42,164 km); good to a few tenths of a degree.
/sim.html#sel=EARTH&tn=1,
then stand at Baotou in Stargazing — it computes which satellites are visible now, from this
registry, in your browser.