Astronomy Magazine
Places · Spaceport
Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center
China's polar and sun-synchronous range, used for Earth observation and, increasingly, for constellation batches.
- Where
- Shanxi, China
- Coordinates
- 38.85°N 111.61°E
- Since
- 1988
- On the map
- Show me
- More
- cmse.gov.cn
The sky from here
Measured at these coordinates the sky is zone 4: suburban edge, which is Bortle 4–5 and a naked-eye limit of about magnitude 5.7–6.5. The Milky Way is a faint band overhead and gone lower down. The sky is noticeably grey rather than black.
Of the 110 Messier objects, 21 are an unaided-eye target from a sky this dark, 99 are comfortable in 10×50s and 100 in a 130mm reflector. You would have to get roughly 230 km south-west before the sky reaches Bortle 2.
Every night of the year reaches full astronomical darkness at this latitude; the Sun always gets its eighteen degrees below the horizon, which places much further from the equator cannot say.
The centre of the galaxy reaches 22° at its highest, which puts the brightest part of the Milky Way clear of the horizon murk without ever being overhead. Of the 110 Messier objects, 11 never set from here and every one of them rises at some point in the year.
Cat's Eye Galaxy, Hercules Cluster and Andromeda Galaxy pass close to the zenith from this latitude — an object at the zenith is being seen through the least air it will ever be seen through, and the difference against the same object low in the south is not subtle.
Little Dumbbell, Pinwheel Galaxy and Owl Nebula never set from this latitude, so they are available on any clear night of the year rather than for one season of it.
Read at 38.85°N 111.61°E. Darkness is estimated rather than measured; everything else follows from the latitude and holds along the whole parallel. How accurate this is.
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Questions
What part of the sky never rises at Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center?
Everything south of declination −51°. From 38.8°N that is a cap 39° in radius centred on the south celestial pole, which is 11% of the whole celestial sphere. Nothing about the calendar or the aperture changes that — the cap is below the horizon at every hour of every night. Its mirror image, the same 11% around the north celestial pole, is circumpolar here and never goes down.
How many hours of true darkness does Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center get?
Between 5 hours 9 minutes on the shortest night of the year, around 21 June, and 11 hours 22 minutes on the longest, around 21 December. Astronomical darkness is the Sun more than eighteen degrees below the horizon, which is a stricter thing than the Sun being down. The sky here reaches it on every night of the year, which is not true much further from the equator.
What orbits can be reached from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center?
Anything inclined at 38.8° or more, for free. A rocket launched due east from 38.8°N arrives in an orbit inclined at 38.8° — the shallowest the site can reach without spending propellant to turn the plane — and steeper orbits are simply a matter of launching on a different heading. That leaves the Space Station at 51.6° and the sun-synchronous band near 98° both within easy reach, since going steeper is only a matter of choosing a different heading. Shallower is where it gets expensive. Every one of the 38.8° between here and the 0° of a geostationary belt is paid for in a plane change, which is why equatorial pads are worth building even in inconvenient places.
How far is Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center from the other sites on this map?
The nearest is Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, about 993 km to the west. That is also the nearest other spaceport, with the next one 1,470 km beyond it. These are straight-line distances over the surface, not driving distances, and in this part of the world the two can differ considerably.