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=== Well Known Earth Orbits === === Earth Orbit Parameterms ===

Earth Orbits

Orbits are complicated, because they involve both position and velocity in three spatial dimensions and time. Simple two-body "Kepler" orbits relate the position and velocity at one time to the position and velocity at other times. In reality, orbits are also complicated by drag, light pressure, and gravitational perturbations by other bodies, and in the extreme by relativistic effects. For this discussion, we will not consider the complications, so that we get closed-form algebraic solutions. Of course, in real life, we will need to include all the complications in our calculations of orbital properties. Server-sats are deployed in closely packed orbital families. One central orbit, perfectly circular and in the orbital plane, with a sidereal period of 14393 seconds and a radius of 12789 kilometers, surrounded by slightly inclined and slightly elliptical orbits that fill a toroidal region around that central orbit. By carefully assigning orbital parameters, this region can be filled with densely packed orbits and objects in them.

Describing Earth Orbits

Orbits are ellipses in a plane which also contains the center of the mass that defines the orbit.

MORE LATER

Earth Orbit Parameterms

system

status

number

planes

#/plane

perigee

apogee

inclination

period

uplink GHz

downlink GHz

Space Station

in use

1

1

1

6727

6736

51.6

5480

x

x

Iridium

in use

66

6

11

7158

7158

86.4

6027

Ka band

Ka band

Teledesic

bankrupt

288

12

24

7778

7778

98.2

6827

28.6-29.2

18.9-19.3

Globalstar

in use

48

x

x

7792

7792

52

6845

x

x

m288 core

empty

0

1

0

12789

12789

0

14393

x

x

m288 outer

empty

0

many

0

12739

12839

2.24

14393

x

x

Molniya

in use

3?

3?

1

7885

45683

63.4

43082

x

x

GPS

in use

31

6?

-

26600

26600

55

43082

x

x

GEO

in use

361

1

-

42164

42164

0 to 14.3

86164

-

-

Moon

natural

1

1

1

364397

406731

5.14

2360592

x

x

MORE LATER

Volunteer Opportunity: Space Debris Orbits The Norad Two Line Elements (TLEs) for all tracked satellites and space debris are available for individuals signing up at www.space-track.org (see references). It would be very useful to build a program that can go through all the two line elements, and look for orbits that cross the equatorial plane in the vicinity of m288 . How many are there?

References

Wikipedia : Orbit

Wikipedia : Orbital Elements

Wikipedia : Two Line element description (with SGP4 fortran)

Ellipse Geometry Review (pdf)

OrbitSoftware

Notes on GPS satellite orbits

SaVi satellite constellation visualization

Encyclopedia Astronautica

Description of NORAD 2 line elements

NORAD Space Tracking Information requires account.

Celestrak

Real Time Satellite Tracking

NASA 3D Realtime Satellite Tracker (Java)

Geosynchronous Satellites

MORE LATER

EarthOrbits (last edited 2014-05-30 20:53:59 by KeithLofstrom)