A Long March 2D launched the Gaofen-9 (02) remote sensing satellite on Sunday, as China… The post Long March 2D lofts Gaofen-9 appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.
@Z.Cochrane In 3D an orbit is in a plane, so imagine a plane slicking through a sphere. The problem is that the Earths' surface is rotating, though much more slowly than the orbit, so the ground track gets a little distorted.
For a maths task in school, I am investigating the orbit of the International Space Station around the Earth. I understand that when the 3D movement in space is represented on a 2D surface, the relationship is not sinusoidal, however I have created the following (simple) model, which I am unsure...
This tweet
The second (crucial) engine firing of the Block DM-03 stage in today's #SpektrRG launch to come in an hour, when the spacecraft almost completes its first orbit around the Earth. Here is my estimate of the ground track: https://t.co/GC8WmAMGct
contains the first image below, and ...
@Z.Cochrane then feel free to post a new question for further clarification or if you have a specific ground track you'd like to understand in more detail
Wonderful thanks. I think I've got a handle on it but wanted to "explain like i'm 5" to someone else. The earth's surface rotation was the missing piece I didn't get. Also not knowing the term "ground track" made googling harder.