What is a Satellite?

• An object orbiting around the sun, earth

or any other colossal body is known as
a satellite. There are two major types of
categorization when it comes down to
satellites, one is natural and the other is
man-made.
• Some of the examples of natural
satellites are planets, moons, and
comets. Jupiter has 67 natural satellites.
The earth has one permanent natural
satellite, the moon we know, which
causes the tides in the sea. Sometimes
other objects (like asteroids) can enter
into temporary orbits of the earth and
become a natural satellite for a span.
• Apart from these, the earth has many
man-made satellites which are placed in
the orbit and are used for different
applications in communications and
 information gathering. As the term itself
states, an artificial satellite is one that is
put in our space by human efforts and
follows the orbit of natural satellites.
• Since they have a very large view field,
they can collect data a lot faster than
instruments which can be used at
ground level. Apart from this, their view
into space beyond earth is not blocked
by clouds, dust and other obscurities,
due to which a satellite can view space
a lot more efficiently than telescopes on
earth.
• Currently, there are more than 2,500
man-made satellites orbiting the earth.
Most of these are of Russian origin. You
may wonder why none of these
satellites collides with each other,
considering the volume. Actually, it is
quite possible for this to occur. Although
care is taken to launch a satellite in
specific orbits such that collisions never
occur, these orbits can vary in nature.
There are many international
organizations in place to prevent such
occurrences. However, in 2009, a
couple of Russian and American
satellites did collide for the first time!
• The satellites are launched with a
specific objective in mind pertaining to
several uses such as communications,
research in scientific areas, forecasting
the weather and intelligence. Once out
in the space, all the different types of
 satellites follow similar physics
principles and are governed by the
same math equations.
Based on their purpose, there are two kinds
of artificial satellites. They are geostationary
satellites and polar satellites.

Types of Satellites:

Geostationary Satellite:
These satellites are placed into orbit at a
distance of around 35,800 km from the
earth’s surface. They rotate in the same
direction as the earth and one revolution of
such satellites is the same as one day on
earth (roughly 24 hours). This means that,
as seen from earth, these satellites will
appear to be at the same spot throughout.
Hence, the name “geostationary” satellites.
These satellites are used as communication
satellites and for weather-based
applications.

Polar Satellite:
Polar satellites revolve around the earth in
a north-south direction around the earth as
opposed to east-west like the geostationary
satellites. They are very useful in
applications where the field vision of the
entire earth is required in a single day.
Since the entire earth moves below them,
this can be done easily. They are used in
weather applications where predicting
weather and climate-based disasters can
be done in a short time. They are also used
as relay stations.

The International Space Station (ISS) which

was launched into orbit in 1998. It is a
habitable artificial satellite and sometimes
can be seen on nights with a clear sky. It
functions as a lab, observatory, and a
landing base for possible expeditions.

Projectile Nature of a Satellite:

• The main thing one can understand
about a satellite is that at the end of the
day, they are projectiles. Any object,
that only has the force of gravity acting
upon it, is known as a satellite. The
gravity’s force is the only thing that
affects a satellite once it is launched into
the orbit.
•

Understand this concept clearly, we will

use the example of launching a satellite
from the top of Newton’s Mountain
which is a hypothetical location well
above the influence of the drag force of
the air. Newton was the first scientist to
give the concept that if an object is
launched with the adequate speed it will
start orbiting the earth. This object
would experience a gravitational pull
that would try to pull it downwards when
 it travels in a horizontal direction
tangentially to the earth.
• If the launch speed is slower than the
escape velocity it will fall back to the
earth. The lines A and B of the diagram
represent those types of projectiles.
• If a projectile is shot off at an escape
velocity with the perfect speed it will fall
into an orbit outside the earth and will
start revolving around the earth; the
dotted line C represents such an object.
If launched at a higher speed, the object
will still revolve around the earth but will
now have an elliptical orbit; the dotted
line D represents such an object.
• It can also be possible that the object is
shot at such a speed that it escapes the
gravitational pull of the earth and
become a free body; the solid line E
represents such an object. The objects
C and D never fall back to the earth
even though being pulled towards it
 continuously, as our earth is a circular
body.
Velocity Needed for an Object to Orbit
the Earth in a Circular Pattern:
This entire observation raises a very basic
question, that how much velocity is
necessary for shooting a body out of the
earth’s lower atmosphere and establishing
it into the outer one still in the range of
the gravitational force. We get the answer
by observing the most basic aspect of the
earth, measuring its curvature. It has been
measured that for every 8000 meters that
one goes along the horizon of the earth, the
surface dips down by about 5 meters. Thus,
applying basic mathematics we get the
assumption that if a projectile wants to orbit
around the sun, it will have to be at such a
speed that it travels 8000m for every 5m of
downward fall. It was observed that if an
object is launched horizontally it will fall by
around 5 meters in the first second. Thus,
we get to the conclusion that an object that
is launched with a velocity of around
8000m/s will orbit the earth in a circular
pattern. This is only applicable when the
object experiences the insignificant amount
of atmospheric drag. The launched object
will travel at a speed of around 8000 meters
in a second and will drop around 5 meters
but as the earth is spherical and has a
curvature that drops 5 meters every 8000
meters, the object will never touch the
ground.
Geo satellite
Polar satellite