The local space context of Xi’an 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 | 34.258° N, 108.929° E | GeoNames (geonames.org) — CC BY 4.0 |
|---|---|---|
| population | 12,952,907 inhabitants | GeoNames (geonames.org) — CC BY 4.0 |
| site | distance · bearing | position | source layer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 806th Brigade missile base, Huanglong, Shaanxi province | 194 km NE (45°) | 35.474° N, 110.447° E | gcat-sites |
| Space Pioneer Gongyi Static Test Site | 381 km E (81°) | 34.709° N, 113.051° E | gcat-sites |
| Taiyuan weixing fashe zhongxin | 489 km NE (41°) | 37.500° N, 112.600° E | gcat-sites |
| Bayan Hot test range | 582 km NNW (330°) | 38.758° N, 105.608° E | gcat-sites |
| Jilantai Missile Test Ground, Nei Monggol province | 689 km NNW (335°) | 39.850° N, 105.580° E | gcat-sites |
| 822 Brigade missile base, Laiwu, Shangdong province | 827 km ENE (72°) | 36.235° N, 117.716° E | gcat-sites |
| Alashan Youqi airport | 858 km NW (312°) | 39.226° N, 101.548° E | gcat-sites |
| Xichang Space Center (Songlin), Sichuan, China | 936 km SW (226°) | 28.247° N, 102.029° E | gcat-sites |
| Leping missile base, Jianxi, China | 973 km SE (125°) | 28.970° N, 117.120° E | gcat-sites |
| site | distance · bearing | position | source layer |
|---|---|---|---|
| MUSCOVY | 708 km ENE (62°) | 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, 20,195 fly orbits whose ground track reaches 34.258° N, so they can pass directly overhead; the other 3,056 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 50.2° 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 Xi’an in Stargazing — it computes which satellites are visible now, from this
registry, in your browser.