ZHONGXING-7

ZHONGXING-7 is an active satellite operated by China, launched on 1996-08-18 from Xichang, China. With over 30 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) at altitudes between 19,863 km and 48,309 km with an inclination of 16.6°. It travels at approximately 11,300 km/h (3.14 km/s), completing one full orbit every 22 hours 30 minutes — that’s roughly 1.07 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.3516 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. It is part of the Geo Protected Plus constellation group. Orbital Radar tracks ZHONGXING-7 in real time using the latest two-line element set (TLE) data, providing live position, altitude, speed and orbital path updated continuously.

ZHONGXING-7 follows a Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO), which sweeps between a low-altitude perigee and a very high apogee. HEO satellites spend most of their orbital period near apogee, moving slowly at high altitude — effectively loitering over a region of interest. This makes HEO ideal for high-latitude communications (Molniya and Tundra orbits), early-warning missile detection (SBIRS), and space science missions that need to sample different regions of the magnetosphere. The large difference between perigee (19,863 km) and apogee (48,309 km) for this object illustrates the characteristic elliptical shape.