If satellites are orbiting the Earth, how can they still work when they leave the area which they were supposed to broadcast to?
In: Technology
There are basically two options:
Option 1: Geostationary orbit. Match the satellite’s orbit speed to the Earth’s rotation speed.
– Good: Works with a single satellite, receiver on Earth can be locked into a stable position.
– Bad: Satellite has to be pretty high up for this to work, which adds delays that are bad for anything that needs two-way data traffic (especially Internet).
Option 2: Constellation. Have a bunch of satellites covering the whole Earth. So many that, at any point on Earth, you have a clear line of sight to at least two satellites at any point in time. You can work out some geometry of satellite positions and orbits to achieve this with as few satellites as possible.
– Good: Satellites can be low, takes care of the delay problem.
– Bad: Having dozens of satellites is extremely expensive. If using a directional dish antenna, receiver needs to have a tracking mechanism to move the dish to keep it pointing at a satellite. Also needs cost and engineering complexity of either satellite-to-satellite data connections (mesh) or a worldwide network of ground stations.
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