Low Earth Orbit - Human Use

Human Use

The International Space Station is in a LEO that varies from 320 km (199 mi) to 400 km (249 mi) above the Earth's surface.

While a majority of artificial satellites are placed in LEO, making one complete revolution around the Earth in about 90 minutes, many communication satellites require geostationary orbits, and move at the same angular velocity as the Earth. Since it requires less energy to place a satellite into a LEO and the LEO satellite needs less powerful amplifiers for successful transmission, LEO is still used for many communication applications. Because these LEO orbits are not geostationary, a network (or "constellation") of satellites is required to provide continuous coverage. Lower orbits also aid remote sensing satellites because of the added detail that can be gained. Remote sensing satellites can also take advantage of sun-synchronous LEO orbits at an altitude of about 800 km (500 mi) and near polar inclination. ENVISAT is one example of an Earth observation satellite that makes use of this particular type of LEO.

Although the Earth's pull due to gravity in LEO is not much less than on the surface of the Earth, people and objects in orbit experience weightlessness because the acceleration of gravity is cancelled by the centrifugal acceleration induced by the orbital speed.

The speed needed to achieve a stable low earth orbit is about 7.8 km/s, but reduces with increased orbital altitude. The delta-v needed to achieve low earth orbit starts around 9.4 km/s. Atmospheric and gravity drag associated with launch typically adds 1.5–2.0 km/s to the delta-v launch vehicle required to reach normal LEO orbital velocity of around 7.8 km/s (28,080 km/h). The drag here is low enough that it could theoretically be overcome by radiation pressure on solar sails, a proposed propulsion system for interplanetary travel.