What is the effect of increasing the altitude of a satellite on its orbital period?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
What is the effect of increasing the altitude of a satellite on its orbital period?
It decreases
It increases
It remains the same
It becomes zero
According to Kepler's third law, increasing the altitude of a satellite increases its orbital period.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
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Q
Q: What is the effect of increasing the altitude of a satellite on its orbital period?
Solution: According to Kepler's third law, increasing the altitude of a satellite increases its orbital period.
Steps: 6
Step 1: Understand what altitude means. Altitude is how high the satellite is above the Earth.
Step 2: Know what orbital period means. The orbital period is the time it takes for the satellite to complete one full orbit around the Earth.
Step 3: Learn about Kepler's third law. This law states that the square of the orbital period of a satellite is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit (which is related to altitude).
Step 4: Realize that when you increase the altitude of the satellite, you are increasing the semi-major axis of its orbit.
Step 5: According to Kepler's third law, if the semi-major axis increases, the orbital period also increases.
Step 6: Conclude that increasing the altitude of a satellite results in a longer orbital period.
