An Analysis of Geosynchronous Orbits Using Mathematics and Physics By: Sehee Oh
|
Introduction
From the accomplishment of the Wright Brothers by building and flying the world’s first successful airplane in the 1900s, mankind continuously developed their aviation skills; not only staying in the sky that people can observe, but they have also gone out into space. Along with the mass investment and development of space shuttles, establishment of satellites also has progressed, giving tremendous benefits to mankind of knowing more about outer space. With satellites, today people can observe how outer space looks like without the need of going out to space themselves. Satellites orbit around the Earth, like the moon. The orbit of satellites that move at the same rate as the Earth does are called geosynchronous[1]. This is the reason why people can watch the information given by satellites continuously even though they are constantly moving. This article will demonstrate the mathematics and physics calculations of a geosynchronous orbit.
Art By: Jessie Gan direction [3]. For example, a runner who was running at her highest speed cannot stop running due to the resultant force, which wants her to remain in the same state. Her muscles must apply a force opposite to her momentum to stop. Next, the second law of motion refers to the famous equation, F = ma , in which F is the result of the forces, m represents the mass of an object, and a is the acceleration. The first law regards specific situations when acceleration is 0, which means that the velocity never changes. The second law expands the first law to general interactions of forces. For instance, when we are standing still, a force called gravity pulls us downwards. However, the reason why we do not go downwards is because there is another force that is maintaining us to remain on the Earth called the normal force. Due to the normal force, the resulting force frequently results 0. However, if this resulting total force changes and is no longer 0, the object begins to move. Here is an example to help you understand how the second law of motion works.
Body
Starting with the basic concepts that need to be understood to analyze the orbit, let’s talk about Newton’s laws of motion, Newton’s law of universal gravitation, and circular orbits. Newton’s laws of motion contain three laws. According to the first law of motion, without a force applied, an object remains at rest or uniform movement [2]. Objects that are moving continuously want to move and need to be acted on by an outside force to stop their motion unless the object that was moving would continue to move at the same speed and 11 | JOURNYS | FALL 2020
Figure 1: a bowling ball with force F
