Satellites - An Informative

Author's Note:  I thought it would be cool to learn about how satellites work and orbit the Earth. I have always been interested in aerospace, and that's why I chose to write this piece. I am not focusing on any specific goal here.

Have you ever wondered how Google Earth works? It's a application on the internet that shows the Earth in high definition where you can zoom in and out to view all over the world. It gets its pictures from satellites around the Earth. Very specific steps are also required in launching and using these technologically advanced machines. Placing the satellite orbit and getting the images the satellite retrieves back to Earth are very complex.

Satellites have been sending images back to Earth for over fifty years when the Tiros 1 weather satellite was launched and started taking pictures of clouds taken from space. Satellites have two types of sensors -- passive and active. Passive sensors sense radiation such as light, whereas active sensors shoot out radio waves at Earth which bounce back to the satellite to be analyzed. The resolution of the satellite's picture depends on the instrument it used and how far away the satellite was from the Earth's surface when it took the picture.

AeroAstro and other satellite manufacturers can't just worry about the image taking in space, but also how the satellite gets to that point. Satellites have to be launched at a very specific speed, between 17,000 and 23,500 miles per hour, at an altitude of 150 miles, requiring very powerful rockets to propel the satellite into space. If the satellite gets launched too fast, it will fly into space carried by its own inertia with millions of dollars of equipment with it. If the satellite gets launched too slow, the Earth's gravitational pull will bring the satellite crashing down into the surface of our planet.

In addition to considering all the launch factors, manufacturers have to worry about drag. The Earth's gravity can cause the satellite's orbit to decay until the satellite is dragged back into the atmosphere and incinerated. At higher altitudes, where the vacuum of space is nearly complete there is almost no drag and a satellite can stay in orbit for centuries. In general, the higher the orbit, the longer the satellite can stay in orbit.

The planning required in any satellite is complicated and requires many types of people to complete it. Be it rocket designers, wing builders, or communication programmers, they all have a role in a satellite's success. They are a marvel of engineering and are a mystery to most people, and probably will be until mankind's existence ends.