Hi all,
Does the lose Earth lose orbit at all? If not, how?
If yes, how or what corrects its orbit?
Thank you for reading..
In: Physics
To interpret your question, why does the ISS start falling towards the earth but the earth does not fall towards the sun?
Provided that is your question, scale. The ISS is much closer to the earth by scale than the earth is to the sun. If the earth was at a comparative distance to the sun there would be no life in earth. This means the effect of gravity, while ideed pulling us closer to the sun, is much weaker, so it takes much longer.
There is also the facts that the ISS follows an orbit “maintaining an orbital altitude of between 330 km (205 mi) and 410 km (255 mi)”, which is a really small range and means the ISS does not benefit from an eliptical orbit the same way earth does. This then means the ISS gets pulled “in” for a larger majority of it’s flight, mening it has to stop itself from losing orbit.
The ISS is orbiting at low-earth orbit, on the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. This tiny bit of atmosphere creates drag which slows the ISS down, making it slightly lose its orbit.
The ISS has thrusters that are fired every once in a while to correct for its orbital loss.
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