Near Circular Orbits

MORE LATER add pointers to orbit discussions

|| a || semimajor axis || 1,2788,866 || || 42,164,170 || || || meters ||

|| T || sidereal period ||

$ r = (1-e^2) a

Periods of M orbits

M orbits describe the number of minutes an orbit takes travel once around the earth and return to the same position overhead. For server sky, these are integer fractions of a 1440 minute day; this makes it easier to calculate the sky position given the orbital parameters and the time of day. the M288 orbit returns to the same position 5 times per day, for example, and makes approximately six orbits in the time the earth turns once. But not exactly. Because the earth orbits around the sun, the position of the sun makes a complete turn around the earth in one year, 365.256363004 days of 86,400 seconds, or 31558149.7635456 seconds