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How does space technology affect me?

Every day we learn morę about the amazing universe we live in from the craft that explore it on our behalf. Closer to home, hundreds of satellites orbit our planet They transmit TV images around the globe, relay our phone calls, link us on the Internet, and provide data for weather forecasts, and much morę. Thousands of technologies and techniques designed for space have been adapted for life on Earth.    f

Tell me morę: satellite orbits

AC The path a satellite takes around Earth depends on the job that it does.

Those in geostationary orbit are 22,227 miles (35,786 km) above the equator and stay over the same part of the surface.

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Others in Iow Earth orbit are at an altitude of only a couple of hundred miles and cover the entire planet.

Communications satellite: Low orbit around the equator

Satellites in polar orbit follow a path that takes them over Earth’s poles; they observe any part of the surface twice a day.

AC Some satellites follow highly elliptical orbits that bring them close to the part of Earth that they want to study and then take them farther away on the far side of the planet.

Satellite types

Satellites orbit Earth for a number of different reasons:

AC Space telescopes AC Earth observation ^Navigation AC Weather AC Spy

AC Communication

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