Gravitation (7 of 17) Calculating the Orbital Height of a Satellite Above the Earth

[@Jey_Jash]

i thank you for this video coz without ur clear explanation, I don't think i would have ever understand it, for that i thank you

[@stepbystepscience]

You're very welcome! Best wishes to you.

[@frankdeslandes511]

You're a legend man. Thank you for these videos.

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad you like them! And thanks for the very nice comment.

[@darkhanamandyk7123]

Do you know what word "legend" mean? You can say just good person but not a legend

[@ConfigOk]

Thankyou love from India

[@stepbystepscience]

Best wishes from Germany

[@katiebell1138]

Thank you so much for this video. I had trouble understanding how to find the altitude. I always found the radius and left it at that, not knowing that I must subtract the radius of the earth to determine the altitude of the orbiting object. On another matter do you have videos explaining "baked curves" and "distance of closest approach".

[@stepbystepscience]

You're welcome! Baked curves???, I baked cookies yesterday.

[@katiebell1138]

@@stepbystepscience thanks for catching that, I apologize I meant "Banked curves".

[@rameezmalik8263]

Great CONTENT and the explanations were great!

[@stepbystepscience]

Glad you liked it!

[@ventjemazzel8822]

Great example; thanks!

[@stepbystepscience]

Great comment, thanks!

[@adriancaliper]

Thank you 🙏

[@stepbystepscience]

You are very welcome.

[@makosful96]

What if I don't know the orbital time? Lets assume the only thing I know about the satellite itself is the speed and mass, the later having been proved irrelevant, how would I go about finding the hight of the orbit? Mass, size and gravity of the planet is of course still known for this question.

[@yue7507]

with the satellite's orbital velocity, you can use v = sqrt(GM/r) and rearrange to make r the subject and find the orbital radius and thus its altitude in that case. This is for circular orbits. For elliptical orbits, it gets more complicated, and there are several ways to do it: if we know the total mechanical energy of the satellite in orbit, we can use the equation Total Mechanical energy = total kinetic energy + total gravitational potential energy; E = (0.5mv^2)-(GMm/r) and v is the velocity of the satellite at a certain point (since the velocity is always changing in an elliptical orbit). Thus r will be the corresponding orbital radius of the satellite at that particular point in time during the orbit. if we know the semi major axis of the elipse, we can use what is known as the vis-viva equation: v^2 = GM(2/r - 1/a) where a is the semi major axis length, and rearrange to find r.

[@ThayAWSOMEworld]

@@yue7507 Thank you, your comment is helping me out 2 years later. I hope you're doing well my friend.

[@yue7507]

@@ThayAWSOMEworld this makes me really happy :) i'm really glad to know that this is helping others like yourself. Funny enough, I actually didn't get to complete this series and totally forgot about it. Your comment might make me go back to finishing this.

[@aronbara5003]

What is the logic behind the equation FG = G * (m1 * m2)/(r^2)?

[@yue7507]

check out part 4 of this series, he derives the equation.

[@Volleyball_Chess_and_Geoguessr]

Is there a way to calculate the height of a geosynchronous satellite by adding up the time it takes to ping the satellite plus processing time?

[@stepbystepscience]

probably if you know the speed of sound and the speed of the processing time.

[@Volleyball_Chess_and_Geoguessr]

@@stepbystepscience Does it travel at the speed of sound? Or the speed of light?

[@stepbystepscience]

@@Volleyball_Chess_and_Geoguessryes, Speed of light, some part of the ‚em spectrum

[@relope5404]

thank you

[@nefratenightcores460]

Suppose we don't know the mass of the earth but instead we have the satellite's centipetal acceleration,then ???

[@muralipriya4807]

in the vid sir told to just fetch the mass of the earth from google

[@gentleff27]

Thanks for solve my confusing part

[@stepbystepscience]

Any time, and thanks for watching!

[@kristinaharbin1309]

Hi, how would I type this in my calculator?

[@stepbystepscience]

Break it down into a few steps, top half of the fraction, then bottom half of the fraction, divide the two and then take the square root.

[@hrushikesheaga6322]

So how are people 4*10^7 I dont understand please explain

[@Roshanmishra2116]

I want formula of height of a satellite.

[@leonlzh]

damn that was so smart wth

[@stepbystepscience]

'Thanks