Does the signal go through the entire earth? Does it curve and travel around the earth? How come the earth isn’t blocking out the signal? I just can’t wrap my head around it. Same thing with satelites that transmit our internet. There can’t be thousands of satelites in a perfect formation that covers every angle, so how does it work?
PRIMARILY interested in the first scenario, how does the ISS transfer signals to USA if the earth’s mass is between USA and the satelite?
In: 5
Imagine you have 2 people who are communicating and for whatever reason they’re around a corner, and no matter how hard they yell they can’t hear each other.
They could wait until they both move close enough to where they have direct line of sight (or close enough to where they can hear each other.) Or they can pass their message to someone else and have them transmit it to the other party (this is what the ISS does.)
Rather than waiting for a direct signal with US, it’ll send the signal to some country who it currently can transmit to, and have them pass it on. Typically done with satellites, though can be done through ground stations also.
You only need 3 satellites to form a perfect geostationary orbit, the more you add the shorter the distance between them and faster the transmission rate.
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