Jonathan T. Wojack at tlj18@juno.com wrote: >But if it is a retrograde orbit, how does it stay in orbit? What is the >difference in relation to the graviton field of Earth if a satellite is >in a reverse "normal" orbit, or in a retrograde orbit? The orbit of all satellites is an ellipse with the gravitational center of the earth's mass as one of the foci. It is irrelevant if the body [earth in this case] is rotating, or which way it is rotating. The difficult part about retrograde orbits is not maintaining orbit once the satellite gets there, but the fact that whereas launching toward the east takes advantage of the earth's rotation, launching toward the west is fighting the rotation and therefore requires the rocket to first overcome the earth's rotation before obtaining orbital velocity. Consequently, payloads launched into retrograde orbit are generally lighter in weight. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 02 2000 - 21:14:05 PST