Bill asked: > My spreadsheet tells me at an altitude of 60,000 miles (96720km) a satellite > needs to cruise at 16,745 mph (26993kph) to remain geostationary. What would > happen to this orbit? The "correct" velocity in order to maintain a circular orbit at that altitude is much slower than the velocity required to remain geostationary. Thus, if a satellite's instantaneous velocity was 16,745 mph at an altitude of 60,000 miles, its orbit would probably be hyperbolic -- with closest approach at 60,000 miles, never to return to earth (without help from the sun or moon). (Actually, I don't have time to run the calculation right now, but this velocity seems plenty high enough to exceed escape velocity for this altitude.) > Is it possible to remain geostationary out there? I realize it would be > very inefficient, but is it possible? Sure it's possible -- but you would have to continually expend fuel to do it, constantly attempting to accelerate toward the earth in order to remain in orbit. Cheers, Rob ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:06:42 EDT