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Geostationary orbit
The one orbit where a satellite appears to hang motionless over a fixed point.
At 35,786 km above the equator, an orbit takes exactly one sidereal day, so a satellite there keeps pace with the ground and stays put in the sky. That is why satellite dishes are bolted in place and never move. It is also a single ring of finite length: slots are allocated by international agreement, roughly two degrees apart, and the desirable ones over populated longitudes are effectively full. Getting there costs considerably more delta-v than low Earth orbit, and the round trip for a signal is a quarter of a second, which is why the constellations now going up for internet service are in low orbit instead.
Where it has come up lately
Related terms
Sun-synchronous orbit
A near-polar orbit that crosses the equator at the same local time every day.
Kessler syndrome
The runaway scenario where collisions in orbit generate debris that causes more collisions.
Low Earth orbit
Everything from about 160 to 2,000 km up, where almost all spacecraft and all people are.
Orbital inclination
The angle between an orbit and the equator, which decides what ground the satellite ever sees.
Questions
What is Geostationary orbit?
The one orbit where a satellite appears to hang motionless over a fixed point.
Why does it matter?
It is also a single ring of finite length: slots are allocated by international agreement, roughly two degrees apart, and the desirable ones over populated longitudes are effectively full. Getting there costs considerably more delta-v than low Earth orbit, and the round trip for a signal is a quarter of a second, which is why the constellations now going up for internet service are in low orbit instead.