Re: [amsat-bb] Equatorial LEO

[Stephan Greene <sgreene@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 21 Jul 1998, Thomas McDaniel wrote:

> Do highly inclined LEO satellites provide any shorter or less often passes
> to satellite stations located at equatorial latitudes?

Pass duration is controlled by the satellite's altitude.  Number of passes
is a more complex interaction between the orbital incliniation of the
satellite and the ground station's latitude.  The extreme cases:

Polar satellite (eg Microsat) - a pass every orbit for near-pole ground
stations; 1-3 passes per 12 hour period for equatorial.  

Equatorial orbit - a pass every orbit for near-equatorial staions, no
passes for stations in higher latitudes.

I believe the commercial LEO comsat constellatiosn are using a mix of low
and high inclination orbits to try to provide the most coverage where the
most demand for their business will be.

Changing the inclination data for a polar-orbiter to 0 degrees and running
a few orbits in your tracking software may be isntructive.

73, Steve  KA1LM@amsat.org

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Stephan A. Greene			sgreene@washsq.com
Manager, IT Systems Engineering		http://www.washsq.com
Washington Square Associates, Inc.	"technology simplified" (TM)
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