eli5 how are satellites placed in just the right spot so they dont fall to earth or drift into space?
In: Planetary Science
A satellite at about 400km altitude needs to move at 7.8km/s to stat in a circular orbit.
At 11km/s it will enter an elliptical orbit that stretches beyond the moon and gets *just* too high to fall back down again.
Anything between 7.8 and 11 km/s is just going to determine how elliptical the orbit is.
If you are in a higher orbit the speeds drop, so at 35,786km you need to go only 3km/s to stay in a circular orbit. You do some maths and you realise that orbit takes exactly a day, so the satellite can be geostationary.
Look up newton’s cannonball to start understanding. Play Kerbal space program to really understand.
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