Talk:Satellite

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Help with this template Comments: edit – history – watch – refresh Reading the article "satellite" one would get the impression that the first satellite was launched by the US; the launch of Explorer I in 1958 is mentioned before the one of Sputnick in 1957 and the latter is announced in a short sentence whereas the American projects prior to 1957 are explained in great detail. Good example of americano-centrism. Particularly displeasant in the field of science. 134.157.10.39 11:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

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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 1 Altitudes 2 Drag-free satellites 3 Astronomical Satellites 4 Numbers of satellites in orbit? 5 Iran? 6 Are you ... 7 First Satellite 8 Hohmann Transfer Orbit? 9 Satellite Catalog Number 10 Norwegian capability 11 Merge? 12 Talk page name 13 Satellite vs. Artificial Satellite 14 Heraldry 15 Kazakhstan 16 Importance to Space exploration

[edit] Altitudes

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

• Low Earth Orbit (LEO)
• Medium Earth Orbit (MEO or ICO)
• Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO)
• Geostationary Orbit (GSO)
• LTO
• Polar 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] 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_Simulations_{User 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)

[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 • WHOIS) it should be treated as vandalism, as the user has been warned multiple times, and is choosing to ignore these warnings. --GW_Simulations_{User 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:

• Stephen Clark (19 June 2006). Kazakhstan Reaches Space in First Satellite Launch. Spaceflight Now. Space.com. Retrieved on March 30, 2007.

— 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_Simulations_{User 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)