supsations said:
wats the difference between low earth orbits, the geostationary and geosynchronous...
i need specifics thoguh
eg. speed, height, orbital decay!
thanks BORED
Both Geostationary and Geosynchronous orbits have a period of 24 hours however a Geostationary satellite must have an equatorial in order to remain 'stationary' above the Earth's surface, otherwise its orbit would be Geosynchronous (where it still has a period of 24 hours but it is not stationary above the Earth's surface). Geostationary satellites sufer very little orbital decay since they experience a very small amount of friction at the height at which they orbit.
Low Earth orbits (LEO's) are just as they sound, they involve low orbitting satellites/objects. LEO's are generally less than 1500 km in order to avoid the van allen radiation belts which can cause considerable damage to electircal systems. LEO's suffer a fair bit of orbital decay from atmospheric friciton.
For Geostationary/Geosynchronous orbits:
Period - 24 hours
Altitude - approx 36,000 km
LEO:
Period - roughly 90 mins
Altitude < 1500km
Diffs:
- Geostationary orbits appear stationary relative to the earth while LEO's don't (I think they may appear as a figure 8 or something). For this reason GeoS satellites tend to be used for communication/GPS etc. while LEO's are often used for surveillance.
-Just list crap like diff heights, diff speeds etc. etc.