Abstract: The entire universe is under the influence of each other in one form or other.

Each and everything in the universe revolve or orbits any other thing. This also applies to stars, galaxies and planets which move in perpetual and everlasting manner and they all bear upon each other. So, the question here arises, what exactly the orbit is? An orbit is an egg-shaped path of an object around the canter of mass. There is a force produced when a mass changes speed and direction (which is acceleration) and gravity is the key expression of this force in space. Gravity is considered as the attraction of an object in the presence of other object and there will be a greater force of gravity if two bodies are more close to each other. The two bodies having the same mass ratio also obey this rule. The possibility that an object can escape from this gravitational pull depends upon the considerable mass of an object with respect of the earths mass or if it can move at a high speed. So, as the object cannot be as massive and cannot move that much fast so this is the reason behind the orbits being happened. Introduction: The importance of orbits cannot be denied and there are a lot of reasons why they are important. Firstly, astronauts get the idea after observing the orbits about the rockets to discharge from the atmosphere of earth. And secondly, spaceflights uses various gadgets and crafts depend heavily on them. There are many different orbits and the selection of orbit depends upon its application, the area it has to cover and the function it has to perform. The circular and elliptical orbits are often used for communication purpose.we can say that orbits are of three basic types on the basis of distance. They are LEO,MEO,HEO and Geosynchronous orbits. Geostationary orbits are the most important one as they remain still at particular point on the earth and they are also used for direct broadcast television. Other includes low earth orbits (LEO) are used for satellite phones and moreover this particular orbit is also used for GPS and navigation satellites. Satellite orbits have different altitudes like in case of LEO , it may be as low as 100 miles(160km) and as high as 22 000 miles(36000km) in case of GEO. Gravity is also an important factor to be considered. Satellites are pulled back to earth by this gravitational pull when they are revolving around the earth in an orbit. They would probably fall back to earth if they dont have their own motion. Also, there is a force connected with the motion of satellite that rotates around the earth and that force pushes it away from the earth. The satellite remains in the stable state due to the speed for which gravity and centrifugal force balance each other for any given orbit and satellite has to maintain that speed. Satellite has to travel faster if it is orbiting in a low orbit to counter the earths pull. The gravitational field is less as we moves far away from earth and also the velocities of satellites are less.

Types of Orbits: There are two basic types in which a satellite orbits an earth. Circular satellite orbits maintain constant distance from the earth and in case of Elliptical orbits the distance changes to the earth.

Figure (1): Satellite orbits. The satellite orbit creates the glide (plane) that moves through the centre of gravity or geo-centre of the earth when satellite orbits the earth. The orbits can be categorised as Posigrade (when the rotation is in the same direction as that of earth) and Retrograde (when the rotation in in the opposite direction as that of the earth). Ground track is a point at which the satellite is straight above as it moves. Geostationary satellites have a single ground track as they always appear right above the same point. The ground tracks crosses from one hemisphere to another and this point is known as Orbital nodes and there are two of them. Ascending node is the one in which ground track crosses from southern to northern hemisphere. And descending node is the opposite of that. Satellite height is an important factor to be considered. Satellite height constitutes of radius of earth plus the height above the earth. Generally it is considered about 3960 miles or 6370km. Orbital Velocity remains the same in case of circular orbits but it change in case of elliptical orbits. Its up to the top when it is near to the earth duto gravitational force and and lowest as it is further away.

Low Earth Orbit (LEO): The orbit is considered as a low earth orbit if a satellite completes a full orbit around the earth in less than 225 minutes called the period. These are also known as near earth orbits. There is an important reason behind this 225 minutes factor that affects the satellite in orbit. So, the satellites moving in this kind of orbits are more open to earths gravitation and atmosphere as compared with the satellites having period greater than 225 minutes that are more affected by the gravitation of sun, moon and planets. Low earth orbits are also considered relatively low in altitude (usually 200 km to 1200km) but enough above the range of conventional aircrafts .However, if we compare LEO with other form of satellite orbits, it is still very close to earth. There are a number of characteristics associated with LEO described below: The orbit time associated with LEO compared with other orbits are very low as well as altitude. So, to balance the earths gravitational field for this low altitude much higher velocities are needed. The approximate velocities are usually 8km/sec for the orbit time of around 90 minutes but these figures differ when considering particular details of the orbit. The path losses are very less in LEO compared with other orbits. The reason behind this is that the satellite in LEO and user are very close to each other. As we move higher and higher, radiation levels are increasing. So LEO has lower radiation levels as compared with other orbits. The energy required to place a satellite in LEO is very less as compared with other orbits. The round trip time (RTT) which depends upon the orbit altitude and location of user with respect to satellite for radio signal is considered low then feel by the other orbits. There is a speed reduction in LEO as a result of friction.

Applications: There are a number of satellites using LEO depending upon different types and applications. Some of them are: LEO are used by earth monitoring satellites who wish to see the surface of earth more clearly as LEO is more near to the earth than any other orbit. LEO is also used by communication satellites including some satellites using iridium phone system. The International Space Station also uses LEO that differs between 320km and 400 km overhead the earths surface.

Medium Earth Orbits: Medium earth orbits is considered as an orbit which has a range starting from few hundred miles to few thousand miles above the surface of earth. In other words they are above the altitude of LEO that is 200-300 miles and below GEO that is about 22,300miles. Orbit period has a range from 2 to 12 hours, providing decent exposure to broader ranges than LEO. But needs more satellites to do so. And usually 10,000 miles is considered as an orbit of MEO. It was first designed for use in telephone system. There are several kinds of MEO depending upon their shapes. They can be elliptical or circular. In the case of elliptical,the satellite speeds up when it comes near perigee and slows down when it reaches apogee.There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages associated with Medium earth orbits. Advantages include as it has a higher altitude ,so its easy for it to get better coverage across globe. Disadvantage include mass of fuel.

Geosynchronous orbits (GEO): Orbits having the period of revolution one day are called GEO. In other words, if a satellite completes a round trip in one sidereal day. So, it has an altitude of 35,786km. Satellites in this orbits nearly matches the earth,s rotation and seems to remain overhead form earth. We can slssify GEO into two types.one is geostationary and other one is non-geostationary.

Geostationary Orbit: Geostationary orbits are circular in shape, having zero inclination angle and same orbital periods. As we know that, as the time for the satellite to orbit increases as the height of the satellite increases and it takes approximately 24 hours for the satellite to orbit at the height of 35790km. This particular type of satellite is known as Geo synchronous orbit, that it is synchronized with the earth. This leads us to a particular type of geosynchronous orbit and is known as geostationary orbit. In this type, the rotation of satellite is in the same direction as the rotation of earth with a period of 24 hours approximately. This clearly depicts that if it is moving in the same direction as earth then its angular velocity will be same as earth and will be in the same direction and also in the same position relative to the earth. The time for the rotation of earth must be precisely clarified to ensure that there is synchronization between the rotation of satellite and the speed of earth. We mostly measure the earths rotation relative to the suns mean position for most of the timekeeping applications and earths rotation when combined with the rotation around the sun gives us the length of time of the day. For an orbit to be at a static position on the earths surface it has to move in the same direction as earths rotation. Also it must not move north or south for any of its orbit. and this in only possible if it stays over the equator. Drifts and Orbit Coverage: There are a lot of forces acting on the satellite causing its position to change slowly in the geostationary orbits. Aspects like earths elliptical shape and the pull of sun and moon are

included. So, satellites need a heavy amount of fuel to overcome these forces. Its very difficult for a geostationary satellite to cover the whole globe. A single satellite can only cover 42% of the earths surface. One of the issues related with using satellites in the orbits is the delay caused by the path length. The minimum path length of a geostationary satellite is about22300 miles. So if the user wants the shortest path length, it has to be exactly under the satellite. There are some advantages and disadvantages associated with geostationary staellites. The main advantage is that satellite will always remain in the same position comparative to the antennas on earth. They do not need any alignment. Disadvantages include the long path delay, more costly to install satellite in GEO and as this rbit is only above the equator so its not possible for it to cover polar regions. Non-geostationary Orbits: A geosynchronous orbit that has no static point on earth is called non geostationary orbit. The orbital period of it is considered as same as of the earth. We can say that it can be circular or elliptical and can have inclination angle with nonzero values. The advantages of using this satellite orbit are that it shelters very large spatial area. Permanent prominence of a satellite in this case lets creating improved communication scheme. Also, we can avoid of cost of computer tracking equipment as we know the satellite is fixed. We will not suffer any kind of interruption in transmission because of the fact that the satellite is always in view.

HEO (Highly elliptical orbits): Highly elliptical orbits or HEO, as the name suggests tracks the curvature of an ellipse. Satellites in the elliptical orbits move much faster when it is near to the earth and slower as it away from the earth. There are two focal points for an ellipse; geo-centre is one of them. There are two major points of the elliptical orbits. One of them is known as apogee, in which the satellite is from the extreme point from the earth. At this point,the satellite moves with very slow rate because of the gravitational pull of the earth is very small or approximately zero. Other point is known as perigee, the satellite here is very near to the earth so the attraction force is very high and satellite moves very fast. The satellite tries to consume mot of its time near apogee if the orbit is more elliptical. If the satellite is in operational area, it can be in sight and when it approaches nearer to earth it drops out of view. We can attain stable coverage by retaining a number of satellites at a constant space. The inclination angle is also an important factor. Those orbits have an angle of oo or 180o that are above the equator. And those passing over the poles have an angle of 90o and we called equatorial orbits to whose that are above the equator while the others that are above the poles are called as polar orbits. Molniya Orbits: Molniya is one of the high inclined elliptical orbits having an inclination angle of 63.4o Inclination angle is very usefull as it is helpful in stabilizing of this orbit. Molniya is an egg shaped orbit and is also knows as highly elliptical orbit (HEO) having an inclination angle of approximately 60o to the equator. The perigee moves along the plane of orbit with an inclination

angle having a high a high apogee at northern hemisphere and low over the southern hemisphere. This is known as rotation of apsides. As, broadcasting is more difficult in the polar area from geo stationary satellite because it takes huge power to do that. The speed varies with the distance in case of elliptical orbits, so it gets speed up when it comes to perigee and reduces its speed as it comes to apogee. The satellite stays much time in the northern area to cover that area because the apagee is focused at the northern area. As, this satellite was presented by Russia and they made finest possible use of it to broadcast over their region. Tundra Orbits: It is one of the distinct forms of geosynchronous orbit which is extremely inclined from the earths equator. Satellites tend to consume more time at North of equator than at south of it so, its considered as elliptical. Inclination angle is exactly the same as in case of Molniya i.e. 63.4o but the only difference comes in altitude. The orbital period of tundra orbits is sama as sidereal day. The perigee and apogee distances are 25,231 km and 46,340 km respectively. It provide wider handling and coverage than molniya as it has a big distance and occupies much time in apogee due to its being elliptical. Tundra orbits is currently used in a constellation of three satellites by Sirius Satellite Radio.

[z]http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMU4QS1VED_index_0.html