Subsynchronous orbit

A subsynchronous orbit is an orbit of a satellite that is nearer the planet than it would be if it were in synchronous orbit, i.e. the orbital period is less than the sidereal day of the planet.[1]

Technical considerations

An Earth satellite that is in (a prograde) subsynchronous orbit will appear to drift eastward as seen from the Earth's surface.[1]

Economic importance in commercial spaceflight

The Geosynchronous-belt subsynchronous orbital regime is regularly used in spaceflight. This orbit is typically used to house working communication satellites that have not yet been deactivated, and may be still be used again in geostationary service if the need arises.[2]

gollark: Due to a weird version mismatch I can't actually access the tailscale status thing but too bad.
gollark: I have acquired osmarksnetnet™ access. Now I just need to access `loki` and debug the bees.
gollark: I know, EFI is intensely well-designed.
gollark: I think they have an account on `procyon`, so maybe they can connect to its tailscale daemon and try and retrieve the current external IP of `loki`.
gollark: And our computers use osmarksISA-2028™.

See also

References
  1. Maral, Gérard; Michel Bousquet; Zhili Sun (2009). Satellite communications systems : systems, techniques and technology. Wiley. OCLC 701718866.
  2. Kumar, Krishna (March 1993). "Geosynchronous satellites at sub-synchronous altitudes". Acta Astronautica. 29 (3): 149–151. Bibcode:1993AcAau..29..149K. doi:10.1016/0094-5765(93)90043-V.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.