Talk:STEREO

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[edit] Orbital Positions

The original text had the A and B satellites orbiting at 22° fore and aft of the earth. At the same time the orbits are described as having periods of 347 days and 387 days (respectively). These orbits will cause the sats to gradually move away from the earth, so while the 22° positions may be *starting* positions, or *final* positions, or positions at *such-and-such* a date, or even *average* (over the working life) positions, they cannot be *fixed* positions.

True, the sats could be placed in quasi-stable orbits at plus and minus 22°, with the A sat orbiting just far enough inside earth-orbit that the earth's gravity just balances the tendency to advance ahead of the earth, and vice-versa for the B sat, but I don't think that is the case. Anyway, if if this alternate supposition was true, then the orbital periods section would need to be rewritten so that both sats had 365.24 day periods.

Xpi6 10:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I was wondering about that when I wrote the article, and I can't find where New Scientist got the 22° figure from. From the orbital times, it's basically 22°/earth year, which is probably where they got the figure from. JamesHoadley 11:03, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

So then its that they move 22° every year? I wonder could they every be placed in L4/5 orbits--BerserkerBen 19:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)