Practical Uses
See also: Geosynchronous satelliteMost commercial communications satellites, broadcast satellites and SBAS satellites operate in geostationary orbits. A geostationary transfer orbit is used to move a satellite from low Earth orbit (LEO) into a geostationary orbit. (Russian television satellites have used elliptical Molniya and Tundra orbits due to the high latitudes of the receiving audience.) The first satellite placed into a geostationary orbit was the Syncom-3, launched by a Delta-D rocket in 1964.
A worldwide network of operational geostationary meteorological satellites is used to provide visible and infrared images of Earth's surface and atmosphere. These satellite systems include:
- the United States GOES
- Meteosat, launched by the European Space Agency and operated by the European Weather Satellite Organization, EUMETSAT
- the Japanese MTSAT
- India's INSAT series
A statite, a hypothetical satellite that uses a solar sail to modify its orbit, could theoretically hold itself in a geostationary "orbit" with different altitude and/or inclination from the "traditional" equatorial geostationary orbit.
Read more about this topic: Geostationary Orbit
Famous quotes containing the word practical:
“Philosophy, certainly, is some account of truths the fragments and very insignificant parts of which man will practice in this workshop; truths infinite and in harmony with infinity, in respect to which the very objects and ends of the so-called practical philosopher will be mere propositions, like the rest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“While there are practical and sometimes moral reasons for the decomposition of the family, it coincides neither with what most people in society say they desire nor, especially in the case of children, with their best interests.”
—Robert Neelly Bellah (20th century)