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    Satellites Orbiting Now ( - ) : Change Change Source

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    Víjáy Ràthòd
    The idea of artificial satellites has been proposed since the 18th century, but the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. This launch surprised the world and started the space race between the Soviet Union and United States. Today, thousands of satellites orbit Earth and are used for scientific research, earth observation, communications, navigation with GPS, and military purposes. The two main orbits are low Earth orbit, which is useful for earth observation satellites, and geostationary orbit, which allows communications satellites to appear stationary overhead.

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    Satellites Orbiting Now ( - ) : Change Change Source

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    Víjáy Ràthòd
    44 views2 pages
    The idea of artificial satellites has been proposed since the 18th century, but the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. This launch surprised the world and started the space race between the Soviet Union and United States. Today, thousands of satellites orbit Earth and are used for scientific research, earth observation, communications, navigation with GPS, and military purposes. The two main orbits are low Earth orbit, which is useful for earth observation satellites, and geostationary orbit, which allows communications satellites to appear stationary overhead.

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    Artificial Satellite

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    The idea of artificial satellites has been proposed since the 18th century, but the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. This launch surprised the world and started the space race between the Soviet Union and United States. Today, thousands of satellites orbit Earth and are used for scientific research, earth observation, communications, navigation with GPS, and military purposes. The two main orbits are low Earth orbit, which is useful for earth observation satellites, and geostationary orbit, which allows communications satellites to appear stationary overhead.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    44 views2 pages

    Satellites Orbiting Now ( - ) : Change Change Source

    Uploaded by

    Víjáy Ràthòd
    The idea of artificial satellites has been proposed since the 18th century, but the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. This launch surprised the world and started the space race between the Soviet Union and United States. Today, thousands of satellites orbit Earth and are used for scientific research, earth observation, communications, navigation with GPS, and military purposes. The two main orbits are low Earth orbit, which is useful for earth observation satellites, and geostationary orbit, which allows communications satellites to appear stationary overhead.

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    ARTIFICIAL SATELLITE

    The idea of a man-made satellite has been around for a long time. When Isaac Newton was
    thinking about gravity, he imagined the thought experiment called Newton's cannonball. He
    wondered what would happen if a cannonball was shot from a tall mountain. If fired at just the
    right speed (and ignoring the friction of air), he realized it would orbit the Earth. Later, Jules
    Verne wrote about a satellite in 1879 in a book called Begum's Fortune.
    In 1903, Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovskii wrote Means of Reaction Devices (in Russian:
    Исследование мировых пространств реактивными приборами), which was the first serious
    study on how to use rockets to launch spacecraft. He calculated the speed needed to reach orbit
    around the Earth (at 8 km/s). He also wrote that a multi-stage rocket, using liquid fuel could
    reach that speed. He recommended liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, though other fuels could
    be used. He was correct on all of these points.
    The English science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke is given the credit of inventing the idea of the
    communications satellite in 1945. He described in detail the possible use of space stations for
    mass communication, how to launch satellites, what orbits they could use, and the benefits of
    having a network of world-circling satellites.[1]
    The world's first artificial satellite, the Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union on October
    4, 1957. This surprised the world, and the United States quickly worked to launch their own
    satellite, starting the space race. Sputnik 2 was launched on November 3, 1957 and carried the
    first living passenger into orbit, a dog named Laika. The United States launched their first
    satellite, called Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958.[2] The UK launched its first satellite in 1962.[3]
    Since then, thousands of satellites have been launched into orbit around the Earth. Some
    satellites, notably space stations, have been launched in parts and assembled in orbit.

    Satellites orbiting now[change | change source]

    /wiki/File:ConstellationGPS.gif
    /wiki/File:ConstellationGPS.gif
    /wiki/File:ConstellationGPS.gifAn animation showing the orbits of GPS satellites in medium
    Earth orbit.
    Artificial satellites come from more than 50 countries and have used the satellite launching
    capabilities of ten nations. A few hundred satellites are currently working, but thousands of
    unused satellites and satellite fragments orbit the Earth as space debris. The largest satellite is the
    International Space Station, which was put together by several different countries (including the
    organizations of NASA, ESA, JAXA and RKA). It usually has a crew of six astronauts or
    cosmonauts living on board. It is permanently occupied, but the crew changes. The Hubble Space
    Telescope has been repaired and updated by astronauts in space several times.
    There are also man-made satellites orbiting something other than the Earth. The Mars
    Reconnaissance Orbiter is one of those orbiting Mars. Cassini-Huygens is orbiting Saturn. Venus
    Express, run by the ESA, is orbiting Venus.[4] Two GRAIL satellites orbited the moon until
    December 2012.[5] Several satellites have orbited the Sun for years and one is to be added in
    2017.[3]
    Man-made satellites have several main uses:

    · Scientific Investigation

    · Earth Observation - including weather forecasting and tracking storms and pollution

    · Communications - including satellite television and telephone calls

    · Navigation - including the Global Positioning System (GPS)

    · Military - including reconnaissance photography and communications (nuclear weapons


    are not allowed in space)

    Orbits[change | change source]


    Most of the man-made satellites are in a low Earth orbit (LEO) or a geostationary orbit. To stay
    in orbit, the satellite's sideways speed must balance the force of gravity. Satellites in low orbit are
    often less than one thousand kilometers above the ground. Close to the Earth, in LEO, the
    satellites must move faster to stay in orbit. Low orbits work well for satellites that take pictures
    of the Earth. Many do jobs that call for high orbital inclination (they swing above and below the
    equator), so they can communicate, or look at other areas. It is easier to put a satellite in low
    Earth orbit, but the satellite appears to move when viewed from Earth. This means a satellite dish
    (a type of antenna) must be always moving in order to send or receive communications with that
    satellite.
    Medium orbit works well for GPS satellites - receivers on Earth use the satellite's changing
    position and precise time (and a type of antenna that does not have to be pointed) to find where
    on Earth the receiver is. But constantly changing positions does not work for satellite TV and
    other types of satellites that send and receive a lot of information. Those need to be in
    geostationary orbit.
    A satellite in a geostationary orbit moves around the Earth as fast as the Earth spins, so from the
    ground it looks like it is stationary (not moving). To move this way, the satellite must be straight
    above the equator, and 35,786 kilometers (22,236 miles) above the ground.
    s

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