ground track

By admin_wla | Tue, 4 Feb 2014 - 12:13
The inclination of a satellite, together with its orbital altitude and the period of its orbit, creates a track defined by an imaginary line connecting the satellite and the Earth's center. The intersection on the line with the Earth's surface is the subsatellite point. As the Earth turns on its axis and the satellite orbits overhead, a line is created by the satellite's apparent path over the ground (the series of subsatellite points connected). A geostationary satellite has an inclination of essentially zero, and, because its orbital period exactly matches the Earth's rotation, its ground track is reduced to an apparent stationary point on the equator. Source: NASA (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Glossary)