Off Topic Question - Sun Synchronous Orbits

From: Charles Phillips via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2015 21:34:52 -0500 (CDT)
All -

Sorry for the off topic question but...

I am looking at a number of sun synch satellites and wonder how to determine
their local solar time at ascending node crossing. I looked at a book by Dave
Vallado and also one by Bong Wie and do understand a lot more about these orbits
but they did not have a way to characterize the orbits (that I recognized).

Specifically: NOAA-19 is in a plane; NOAA-18, Cosmic Background Explorer, and
SAC-D/Aquarius are in a different plane. So NOAA-18 and SAC-D/Aquarius are
nearly co-planar (right now). Landsat-8 and NOAA-16 are nearly coplanar in a
different plane. 

I think that some of them can be characterized by the solar time when they cross
the ascending node. 

I looked at several NOAA web pages, etc (even Gunter's page) and do not see
where it says if they are supposed to be in a particular plane and if so -
which.

Can anyone help answer this somewhat random question? Am I missing something
simple?

Charles D Phillips
Intelligent Commercial Spaceflight
713-882-4578
www.intelligentcommercialspaceflight.com
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Received on Mon Sep 28 2015 - 21:35:25 UTC

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