>>5442292

>>5442216

>> 5440674 (pb)

The North Korean satellites are not in geosynchronous orbit. And they don't hover over any location on the planet. They make a complete orbit every 1.5 hours, passing over (or near) every point on the planet twice a day (once going north to south, another time going south to north.)

There's a lot of misinformation in the Epoch Times article.

"Another unusual feature of the North Korean satellites is that they orbit from south to north. Normally, weather satellites go from north to south to help obtain a sun-synchronous orbit—to observe conditions on earth under regular sun conditions—which can be desirable for earth observation satellites."

This is mixing up two completely different concepts.

For ICBMs the trajectory matters. Radar fences tend to be looking north, at the direct path for a Soviet attack. Something launched in the other direction, coming in from the south, would be less visible. That's likely what the author was aware of when comparing directions.

This is totally irrelevant for an orbiting satellite in a polar orbit. Since the satellite will - every day - approach from both north and south, on a well established and known trajectory.

What does matter for an Earth observation satellite in a sun synch orbit is the time of day the satellite passes over, as this affects local weather and shadows for imagery. And that is sometimes defined in terms of when the satellite is going in a particular direction (the northbound or southbound pass of the day.)

Another reason the n vs s direction does not matter for an orbiting satellite, is if the satellite orbit is at the right altitude for an EMP, it would fire by surprise on a known trajectory. There is NO element of surprise to be masked by taking a path that evades radars (unlike an ICBM).

Anyway - there is real info in the article, but unfortunately it's mixed with lots of stuff that is simply mixed up and not accurate or relevant. Read with a critical filter.

>>5442468

For clarificaiton about low Earth orbits (this inclids everything below the radiation belts, the space station, polar weather satellites, Iridium, etc):

The satellite follows a circle over the Earth, making an orbit every 90 to 120 minutes. The Earth rotates under the satellite's orbit. So each orbit the Earth has turned by about 1/16 to the east, and therefore on each orbit the satellite's groundtrack (path below the satellite on a map) is moved some hundreds of miles to the west.

The orbit is tipped (inclination) to the equator. The degrees inclination is the farthest norht and south the groundtrack passes. So a satellite in a 50 degree inclination orbit passes over every point on Earth within 50S - 50N twice a day. No way to avoid it, even if yoiu wanted to.

Sun sync orbits are good for Earth observation due to stable and consistent lighting. It's a special place where the tug of the Earth's equatorial bulge tips the orbit at a rate that matches the Earth's orbit around the Sun, otherwise there is a drift in the overflight time of day. Sun sync requires an orbit nearly polar, tipped about 5-10 degrees from perfect polar. So in that kind of orbit a satellite passes over everywhere by necessity.