eli5 how are satellites placed in just the right spot so they dont fall to earth or drift into space?
In: Planetary Science
An orbit is not an altitude and orbit is speed. https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ .
Low earth orbit is about 7km/sec. This is the cheapest orbit you can get to. The altitude is a couple hundred miles, so that the drag of atmosphere does not slow you down enough to de orbit you.
Geosynchronous orbit is 3km/sec, at 36,000 km. However to get to this altitude you need to be going 10 km/sec in LEO to get there ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_transfer_orbit )
Escape velocity from Earth (drift off into space) is 11km/sec
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