Talk:Satellite

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The first artificial satellite -- not sure why the big discussion of Arthor C. Clark's thoughts are here. Many others had discussed and studied satellites before him. He did not invent the idea. First satellite was Sputnik. Done.

Vandalis

I do edit on wikipedia, but i thought I should point out the vandalism on the list of first satellites by country. Specifically, listing Ethiopia as having the first satellite. If someone could fix that, it'd be awesome.


Contents

[edit] Altitudes

What is the minimum altitude and the name of the lowest satellite to have orbited the earth? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.13.34.54 (talk) 02:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC) What are typical altitudes that satellites occupy? It would be nice to say something about that, ie, how high is geosynchronous? How high are the GPS satellites? etc, to give perspective. - Grubber 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See Geostationary orbit, Low Earth orbit, Intermediate circular orbit etc.--Yannick 02:47, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Done, however these heights are different for every planet, need to add that remark (eventually) -- kf4yfd 09:37, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


How about if we stick it in after Types of Satellites ? We could call it Typical Satellite Orbits or Types of Satellite Orbits ? Usually satellites are categorized in by their orbits: LEO, MEO, GEO, HEO, Polar, Molniya, Sun-Synchronous and inter planetary. Quoting from High Earth Orbit

Regards, Wicak 01:24, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

  • That sounds like a great addition. As a person who doesnt know much about satellite terminology, I came to this page to find out how high satellites were, but didn't find it and didn't know where to go next. I think a (sub)section on this would be great! - grubber 11:27, 2005 August 4 (UTC)
I change the order of the orbit listing. The general orbits (LEO, HEO, MEO, GEO) are in altitude order, whereas the special orbits are in alphabetically orbit. I'm still trying to find a definitive definition of MEO. IADC only defines LEO and GEO 'protected regions' (another entry than needs to be added). -Taka2007 21:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drag-free satellites

I'm an aerospace engineer, and I can't understand the following statements, so I removed them:

Drag-free satellites are satellites that offers an environment that is as isolated as possible from the forces of nature. A properly designed drag-free-satellite proof mass is uncoupled from the rest of the Universe to a remarkable degree.

Maybe someone knows something I don't, but then please cite your source so we can verify what your saying. Perhaps the intent was to create an Experimental satellite category for sats like the Long Duration Exposure Facility or the Space Technology Research Vehicles which don't fit into any of the current categories. --Yannick 02:39, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Astronomical Satellites

doesn't this just sound strange ? would it not sound better if it were just Astronomy Satellites to describe their payload ? cheers. Wicak 01:15, 4 August 2005 (UTC) PS. I searched Google for this term (Astronomical Satellite) and couldnt find anything. I also looked at some dictionaries as well. Astronomical is the correct name.


[edit] Natural and Artificial Satellite

The article begins with: "In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is any object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavor. They are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon."

I believe that set of sentences are ambiguous when trying to differentiate between artificial and natural satellites. It starts by affirming that "a satellite is any object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavor", limiting the word to artificial satellites on the spot. Then it goes on to say that there are also natural satellites. But if you take the definition strictly as said, then a "natural satellite" makes no sense - because a satellite, by this definition, is placed into orbit by human endeavor.--Marker 17:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree this is a difficulty with current usage of the term, but I fully support the current phrasing of the lead sentence. The qualifying phrase, In the context of spaceflight, makes the assertion which follows true. It effectively says, "In the context of putting things up into space, those things are satellites (no need to qualify the term) if they get into orbit." The second sentence then effectively says, "In the context of things in orbits, there are other things already up there that are also sometimes called satellites." By having the wikilink, it makes clear this article doesn't cover those things, but that another article does. (sdsds - talk) 17:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers of satellites in orbit?

It would be nice if the article could give estimates, either overall or by type, of the number of artificial satellites in orbit. Thanks, Cliff S.

I question this addition simply because satellites can orbit anything (as this page should reflect) and we only track Earth's satellites. See geocentric orbit for these numbers. -- kf4yfd 02:36, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

There was a discrepancy between the "Early US Efforts" and data in the table under "Launch Capable Countries". I've updated the data in the table from Celestrak.com which gets most of is data from SpaceTrak.org. There is a 30 day lag in some of the data. -Taka2007 18:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Iran?

What is Iran doing in a list of "countries with satellite launch capability" if its satellites are lauched by Russia? 201.1.188.62 05:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. Just because a satellite is developed in Iran it does not mean that they have launch capability. The same applies for the Kazakh and Belarusian satellites (both launched in Baikonur by foreign launch vehicles). I'm removing them from the list. --cassini83 16:08, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Are you ...

Are you aware that there are satellites that are designed to literally destroy other satellites, ICBMs and other targets ? These things are called "Killer Satellites", "Anti Satellite Weapons", "A-Sats". Some have kinetic energy rounds, while others are armed with energy and/or particle weapons. They're designed to take out, mainly other satellites , missiles, MIRVs, warheads. The US and the USSR has built these weapons to take out "enemy" satellites, ICBMs, MIRVs. Rumor has it that other nations now have these things. Martial Law 07:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC) :)

Besides I have seen the Stephen King movie Maximum Overdrive in which a comet is blamed for all of technology killing people. At the end of the movie, it is revealed that a Soviet "weather" satellite had taken out a UFO with powerful laser cannon and Class IV Nuclear Weapons. Martial Law 07:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC) :)

ghgfhgfh

it would be good if this article included an estimate about the number of artificial satellites orbeting earth. AshrafSS 06:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First Satellite

To be technically correct, the first artificial satellite (going by the strict definition of a man-made object orbiting Earth) was a multi-ton steel plug that was placed over the entrance of an underground nuke test. When the nuke went off, the plug was shot into space. Just wondering if this should be included. Chairman Meow 19:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)Chairman Meow

Yeah, I remember reading about that. They hadn't planned it going into orbit, but because they had a camera on the plate/plug, they could calculate the velocity between frames. Since they didn't find the plate anywhere, and the plate apparently had enough velocity to get into orbit, they assumed it did just that. Very cool. —Taka2007 05:15, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
This is an urban legend. The plate was 900kg, not multi-ton, and is assumed to have burned up before leaving the atmosphere. If it didn't burn up, drag would have slowed it down below escape velocity. See the article on Operation Plumbbob as well [1] and [2]. Hgebel 06:26, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hohmann Transfer Orbit?

I'm don't think it's accurate to refer to a Hohmann Transfer as an orbit per se, at least in the same vein as LEO, GEO, etc. It's not an orbit per se, it's a type of maneuver (or more accurately, two maneuvers). I've seen it called a Hohmann Transfer Maneuver before, but not an orbit. Not saying I can't be convinced to call it a Hohmann Transfer Orbit though. -Taka2007 21:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Satellite Catalog Number

Can somebody write about this? They are set by USSPACECOM I think(?) Here's a link describing them: [3]. Oh, and also International Designator. I have added them to Tele-X, for example. Kricke 21:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I added the two articles Satellite Catalog Number and International Designator. The NSSDC_ID in the Infobox_Spacecraft template links to NSSDC. Perhaps that should be changed to International Designator or NSSDC ID (the later is a redirect)? - Kricke 12:20, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Norwegian capability

According to Wikipedia's own article Andøya Rocket Range, Norway's launch capability is restricted to suborbital sounding rockets. Should it, in fact, be listed as a nation capable of launching satellites? Mikedash 17:12, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The above comment is correct. Norway is not, and has never been, capable of launching satellites into orbit. Norway is among the countries which need the help of other nations to launch: The US, ESA, or Russia. Ref the Norwegian Space Centre.

[edit] Merge?

Satellite orbit should be merged with orbit (or wherever it redirects to these days), not this page. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 18:30, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Currently orbit redirects to planetary orbit. These pages are so intertwined that it is difficult to say where and how they should be combined. Nevertheless, effort should still be made.kf4yfd 23:37, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
yeah, Satellite orbit should fall under orbit rather than satellite. Mlm42 14:22, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk page name

why does Talk:Satellite redirect here to Talk:Artificial satellite?.. Mlm42 14:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

i've fixed it. Mlm42 14:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Satellite vs. Artificial Satellite

This article pretends like it's going to talk about all satellites (natural and artificial) a) in the title, b) in the definition, and c) by having a heading "Human-made devices" (which is essentially the whole article). But it never actually does and it doesn't have to. Is there any objection to moving this page to Artifical Satellites (which is what it's really about). That leaves the "Satellite" page as a disambig/redirect rather than the other way around.--Will.i.am 20:35, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Or perhaps it was recently moved here for some reason (inferred from the comments immediately above)? --Will.i.am 20:39, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone with more knowledge needs to edit this page as there is an english error in the begining. I simply removed some vandalism.

Just wondering where the whole 'Serbia has launch capabilities' came from. The news article it links to (according to a personal translator) only talks about how Serbia purchased equipment from other countries. The same translator tells me that Serbia did not launch its own, but in fact bought one from abroad (i think Israel) or rented one out. Why is Serbia in that list?

[edit] Heraldry

So someone's put a satellite in their coat of arms. Is this really worth including? I think it would struggle to justify its inclusion even under a 'trivia' heading. Scatterkeir 04:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed... perhaps this belongs on the Heraldry page... or, since this is something about a particular person/lineage, maybe the information is not particularly encyclopedic? Or, perhaps an article could be written on the cultural influence of the satellite and more could be elaborated on why the satellite in included in a coat of arms. Just wondering... Goodnight3455 04:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. I'm thinking that this prolly isn't the most appropriate place for this sort of discussion. As I appear to be the third editor in the space of a year to notice this out-of-place verbiage, I'm going to nix the section. E_dog95 Hi 15:56, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm boldly removing the new section on Numismatics based on the same principles we applied to the previously removed Heraldry bit. E_dog95 Hi 16:40, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan has not launched its own satellites. All Kazakhstani satellites have been launched on forein rockets. Therefore it should not be included in the table of countries that have developed satellite launch capability. In the case of 212.16.12.227‎ (talk • contribs • info • WHOIS) it should be treated as vandalism, as the user has been warned multiple times, and is choosing to ignore these warnings. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 22:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but this article talks about a launch of a Kazakhstan rocket from Kazakhstan — which means they have in-country capability:
— ERcheck (talk) 23:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Proton is a Russian rocket. It is coincidental that it was launched from Kazakhstan. The launch site was built during the Soviet era when Kazakhstan was part of the USSR, and is still used by the Russians. The list in question refers to cases of countries that have developed their own rockets. The Proton is Russian (or Soviet), not Kazakh. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 23:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Importance to Space exploration

Would anyone like to support the current "Importance to Space exploration" for this article (Top Importance)? It seems more appropriate for a "Mid Importance" rating. Athough orbital observatories do admittedly have a high importance, not a lot of exploration is being done with satellites per se. Sdsds 04:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] High Earth Orbit

The link above redirects to Highly elliptical orbit but the term suggests orbits beyond the geosynchronous orbits that are not necessarily highly elliptical. Are there actually satellites on (near-circular) orbits beyond the geosynchronous radius? I remember dimly heaving read about military satellites of the U.S. for detection of nuclear tests that have (or had) orbits of about 100000 kilometres (i.e. about 1/4 of the Moon's orbital radius). On the other hand I cannot see any benefit of such a high (and therefore costly) orbit compared with intermediate altitudes of about 10000 km.--SiriusB 12:13, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The redirect is clearly misleading: a high earth orbit need not be highly elliptical. The obvious cases are orbits at the Lagrange points. For Earth-Moon all of these, including L1, are beyond GEO. I believe there have been artificial satellites sent to several of these points. (Sdsds - Talk) 19:04, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Namechange

The title should be Artificial Satellite, since there is an article that deals with the natural kind, and this deals with the man made, I am changing the title, if you have any objections feel free to revert and leave me a comment. I will have satilite re direct to the disambig Tennekis 00:40, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Did you consider the question of capitalization when you made the move? (Sdsds - Talk) 00:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
If you mean to use the lowercase name standard, he might have noticed we've apparently gone around these names before. See the history of "Talk:Artificial satellite". (SEWilco 02:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.


  • Artificial Satellite → (multiple possibilities) —(Discuss)— This article had been living happily at Satellite until a recent move to Artificial Satellite was made without prior discussion. The result is a confusing (to me, at least ;-) set of redirect and disambiguation pages, some of which seem like endless loops! Returning this page to Satellite with an appropriate otheruses template makes the most sense to me. But at a minimum, can it be moved to Artificial satellite, replacing the redirect currently there? (Sdsds - Talk) 04:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I've placed a request for a move at Wikipedia:Requested moves#4 May 2007. (Sdsds - Talk) 04:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

This article was originally at 'Artificial satellite', second word lowercase, which is where it should be returned. That page is now a redirect, which I just changed, sensibly, to point here. The one paragraph on natural satellites is duplicated in Natural satellite, I removed it. The way, the truth, and the light 05:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps, although it's inconsistent with Natural satellite. If we want to get it moved we have to agree on a target, and I think we have a better chance of actually getting it through if we ask for the uncontroversial Artificial satellite. The way, the truth, and the light 04:42, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Either way seems acceptable. The advantage of Satellite (artificial) is the terseness of expression using the pipe trick notation, [[satellite (artificial)|]] for the very common usage of just "satellite". (Sdsds - Talk) 20:30, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This article has been renamed from Artificial Satellite to satellite as the result of a move request. No consensus has been demonstrated for the move to "artificial satellite", and having satellite redirect here indicates that this is the primary meaning. I can see no reason why the article should nto be at satellite, as it has been for years. --Stemonitis 09:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minimal orbital speed

Both this article and the one on Konstantin Tsiolkovsky seem to imply that Tsiolkovsky showed a satellite in orbit around the Earth must be moving at least 8 km/s. But that just isn't true. A satellite in Geostationary orbit is moving at 3.1 km/s. Check out the values in the table at Template:Earth orbits. It shows 8 km/s is the speed of a satellite in the lowest possible orbit, and speed decreases as orbital altitude increases. Or do these articles really say something that is somehow consistent? (Sdsds - Talk) 05:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe 'speed' here is an imprecise way of saying delta-v, which does indeed need to be at least 26,000 ft/s (8 km/s) to orbit the earth. The way, the truth, and the light 15:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I've reworded this to refer to the speed required for a minimal orbit, rather than the minimal speed required for orbit. The distinction may be slight, but one seems more correct. (Sdsds - Talk) 04:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nationalistic subtext

The section on "Launch capable countries" has a tone that subtly implies a certain kind of nationalistic thinking about the subject. I don't think this is intentional on anyone's part, but as it stands the section fails WP:NPOV acceptability criteria. It implies that nation-states launch satellites. Largely this is not now true. In the United States for example, NASA, NOAA, NRO, and even the military don't launch many of their own satellites these days. Instead, the reality for most entities that want to launch satellites is that they contract out the launch to a launch service provider like United Launch Alliance or International Launch Services or Arianespace. So: why is this "Launch capable countries" idea notable enough for inclusion in the article? (sdsds - talk) 03:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] is this article only about artificial satellites?

from intro, i gather this article should only be about artificial satellites. meanwhile, in several places (such as the discussion of orbit types) it includes things that don't apply to artificial satellites. i will try to make some changes accordingly. 82.6.96.66 (talk) 14:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Orbit types section

I've tried a few times to remove the list in the orbit types section, since it has now been completely moved to (and expanded upon) in List of orbits. I think it's much more appropriate there, since that include orbits of natural satellites as well. Since either a bot reverts me every time i try to remove it, or i get blocked (*sigh*), could somebody with an account please remove it? thanks. 82.6.96.66 (talk) 16:38, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more; it's gross duplication. Let's see what happens when I try to delete it! 86.133.245.198 (talk) 03:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Scope

It's not clear from the opening paragraph whether the scope of the article is intended to be limited to Earth-orbiting (artificial) satellites, or whether man-made satellites of other planets are also to be included in the definition. If the former, suggest adding the word "Earth" again:

In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into Earth orbit by human endeavor.*

Otherwise, suggest something along the lines of:

In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavor (usually into Earth orbit, but also including craft orbiting other planets and astronomical bodies).

While we're at it, I'd also be inclined to removed the first sentence: "According to the Oxford English Dictionary a satellite is any object, man-made or natural, that orbits the Earth." I don't think it's necessary, especially not so prominently, when we are defining for ourselves what the article is about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.245.198 (talk) 03:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

*Actually, I've just realised that this won't do. Regardless of the intended scope of the article, the fact is that man-made objects in orbit around other planets are sometimes called "satellites", so the sentence will have to be reworked. Still, you get the idea...

Thanks very much for raising for discussion the topic of the article's scope! Up front: I support limiting the scope of this article to artificial satellites in Earth orbit, despite the fact that many other things are also somtimes called satellites. I support making that limit explicit by (as you suggest) starting the article with the sentence that begins, "In spaceflight...." As for the observation that some spacecraft orbiting bodies other than Earth could be described as "satellites", while true, I don't think this is as common as describing them as "orbiters", (as compared to "landers" or "rovers" or "impactors"). For example, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. (sdsds - talk) 03:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I did a quick Google before posting my comment, on "satellite mars" (without the quotes), and a surprising number are using the term in relation to artificial satellites. Incidentally, while you're here maybe you'd care to take a look at the comments above under "Orbit types section". My deletion was reverted by a bot too! 86.133.245.198 (talk) 03:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC).

[edit] Too US-centric

In the History of Satelites section, there are only 1 1/2 lines about Sputnik, but 20 or 30 lines about early US satelites. Surely the USSR program out to be covered in as much detail? 80.2.200.96 (talk) 00:54, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Perhaps you could rectify the issue rather than asking for it to be done? That is what Wikipedia is all about, after all. Cheers and welcome.--Read-write-services (talk) 03:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Russian inventions category

Guys, since the first satellite, the Sputnik, was invented in the Russian SFSR, it's logical to place this article in the Russian inventions section. Justl like tank for example is placed in the British inventions. Shpakovich (talk) 23:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)