Talk:Sun-synchronous orbit

ARTICLE OPENING IS FULL OF SELF-ABSORBED TECHNOSPEAK
When you write about science for the general public you have a responsibility to communicate in a way that the average non-scientist lay person can understand. This is also Wikipedia policy--

Once the public service mission of the article is satistied, one may also then include highly technical language in parallel to the non-technical writing. But only after the plain English requirements are met, unless a lay translation is virtually impossible.

This is good practice anyway for people in the science fields, because if you want your own work to be funded, you had better know how to communicate the key aspects of what you are doing in plain English, free of self-absorbed techno-babble. Otherwise you might eventually lose public support and funding for your work. Plus it's just plain inconsiderate to write a science article on a public-service platform that can not be understood by the general public. 64.134.125.77 (talk) 08:31, 16 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree. The polar orbits page says "meaning that each successive orbital pass occurs at the same local time of day." If this is accurate, this should be the first sentence, or at least substitute it for the "In other words" instead of the oh-so-clarifying "precesses once a year". I'd change it, but I'm not positive that it is accurate.

--98.173.216.165 (talk) 19:42, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Heliosynchronous orbit
Yes indeed why would Heliosynchronous be wrong to say? It has the exact same meaning... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.254.5.198 (talk) 19:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Is the article correct in saying that the term "heliosynchronous orbit" is rarely used relative to "sun-synchronous"? In my mild experience reading and studying physics, just the opposite is true. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.206.231.43 (talk) 06:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC).


 * See Heliosynchronous orbit —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.199.115.206 (talk) 12:35, 21 June 2009 (UTC)


 * No, it is a made-up term, see the discussion on the Talk Page at the Talk:Heliosynchronous orbit. Cheers.  N2e (talk) 14:28, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

dynamical form factor
The equation for J2 is misleading at best. J2 is not defined with respect to the Earth's rotation rate, and the precession rate does not depend directly on this rate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Optiker (talk • contribs) 10:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Very strange/incomprehensible statement! Please ignore!

Stamcose (talk) 08:13, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Sun-synchronous orbit
(1) The right-hand side of the cos(i) = RHS equation on page 2 has an error that makes it useless. Move the (square-root of mu) factor from numerator to denominator to correct the error. A units analysis of RHS will also reveal existence of the error, noting that cos(i) is unitless.

(2) Insert factor ((1-(e squared))squared) on RHS to upgrade to non-zero eccentricity.

(3) It should be mentioned that this equation is derived (after corrections named above) from secular perturbative analysis (e.g., see Herrick, Astrodynamics, Vol. 2, pages 216 and 195 for J), and does not provide evaluation of physical effects due to the osculating orbit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.89.177.1 (talk) 17:35, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The dimension of
 * $$\sqrt{\mu}\ a^{\frac{7}{2}}\,$$  is   $$km^5\ s^{-1}\,$$
 * The dimension of
 * $$\rho\,$$ is   $$s^{-1}\,$$
 * The dimension of
 * $$J_2\,$$ is   $$km^5\ s^{-2}\,$$


 * Please ignore the unsigned comment above!

Stamcose (talk) 08:09, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

The formula is seriously in error and needs to be corrected. J2 is supposed to be dimensionless! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.186.244.247 (talk) 06:26, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

"Heliosynchronous orbit" as an equivalent term for Sun-synchronous orbit is unsourced
There is no source in the article for the claim that Heliosynchronous orbit is the same thing as Sun-synchronous orbit. I have tagged the claim as needing a citation. If one is not forthcoming, I will remove the claim shortly.

In the meantime, if you want to see why there is likely no claim, and that Heliosynchronous orbit is an invented term, possibly inadvertantly through Wikipedia, see the discussion underway at Talk:Heliosynchronous orbit. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:32, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Dubious
I think that the mean motion of the Earth about the Sun is 360° per sidereal year, not tropical year. Sidereal year is the time taken by the Earth to orbit the Sun once with respect to the fixed stars. &mdash; Petr Matas 09:09, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Issues with image.
It appears that the image uses the wrong angle for DeltaOmegaSSO. From what I can tell, to keep the constant angle, the orbit needs to move in a counter-clockwise direction, not the clockwise direction shown. For example, between 21/06 and 23/09, there should be a period where the green and red orbits (where I assume the red orbit is taken as a point on Earth's surface or the like) overlap. Using the angle shown at 23/09, that requires the angle to be larger then (between 21/06 and 23/09) than it is at 23/09.

Could someone please confirm and possibly fix the image?Black.jeff (talk) 21:25, 22 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Another potential issue: the image caption ends with this statement: The green arrow should be counter-clockwise as it should match the counter-clockwise white arrow. Does this mean that there's an error in the image—that the direction of the green arrow should be reversed? Phlar (talk) 22:22, 25 January 2018 (UTC)


 * ✅ cm&#610;&#671;ee&#9094;&#964;a&#671;&#954; 20:09, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Technical details for Special cases
What are technical details for the noon/midnight orbit and the dawn/dusk orbit? John W. Nicholson (talk) 15:41, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Broken formula
One of the formula in the Technical details section is broken with a weird parsing error. this edit seems to be the culprit but I can't figure out why or how to fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calimo (talk • contribs) 13:01, 12 January 2018 (UTC)


 * What do you think is broken? If I look at the page I see nothing obviously wrong William M. Connolley (talk) 13:36, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

How hard are these orbits to reach
What is the relative 'cost' or effort needed to reach the higher SS orbits compared to the lower ones ? - Rod57 (talk) 05:21, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Technical details
The part on “Technical details” is interesting but it would be better to add citations to papers (or books) where one can find the various formulas presented in this section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hub2307 (talk • contribs) 08:41, 3 August 2020 (UTC)