What's Up in Space?

Orbits Explained Visually
And Data Visualization of Satellites

Types of Orbits

Low Earth Orbit (LEO)

Range: 0 - 1,240 miles

Example: International Space Station

Purpose: Scientific Research
Orbit Height: 249 miles
Speed: 17,100 miles per hour
Period: 90 minutes

Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)

Range: 1,240 - 22,000 miles

Example: Navstar-1A

Purpose: Global Positioning System (GPS)
Orbit Height: 12,550 miles
Speed: 8,640 miles per hour
Period: 12 hours

Geostationary Orbit (GEO)

Range: 22,000 - 22,240 miles

Example: Satcom-1

Purpose: Communications (Cable Television)
Orbit Height: 22,236 miles
Speed: 6,880 miles per hour
Period: 23 hours 56 minutes

Orbit Demo

This simulation runs at about 360x normal time rate.

Track a body:





Zoom:



Insert a GPS satellite into orbit.
Orbital assignment: MEO
Reference Orbit: See Navstar-1A.
Controls: Adjust altitude and velocity below.


Altitude

Velocity



Launch Vehicles

As you can imagine, getting to space (and to the different orbits) is not an easy task. In spaceflight, a launch vehicle, typically a rocket, is used to carry a payload (in this case, satellites), from the Earth's surface into outer space. Typically, the further from Earth you want to go in orbit (GEO being one of the farthest), the more powerful the launch vehicle must be to successfully deliver the payload. Below, we use data from roughly 300 of the most recent satellite launch vehicles to illustrate this relationship.


Filter by Orbits:

GEO

LEO

MEO

Elliptical