Re: An (old) curious observation, part II

rkresken@esoc.esa.de
Thu, 15 Oct 1998 16:17:33 +0100

...and there is another very good reason to launch satellites into
retrograde orbits with about 98 degrees inclination:
If you need your satellite to be permanently sunlit and/or if you want the
satellite
to fly along the terminator permanently, you need an orbit that precesses
with
about 1 degree per day to follow the sun, a so-called sun-synchronous
orbit.
But this was most likely not the case in your observation since such a
satellite
wouldn't fly westward.

Rainer