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A Study On Orbital Rummage

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sna Arguedas
6/4/15
Geography 1
Prof. MariaHazy
Orbital Rummage

Nothing is more relaxing then looking at the night sky, gazing at the stairs, and find familiar constellations. However flying at 8 kilometers per second is over 100 million particles of debris. The average bullet only travels at 3,000 kilometers per second. Making bolts, screws, and even paint chips at this hyper speed a devastating threat. And the vast amount of junk floating in our orbit only continues to grow.
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first ever satellite, Sputnik into space. A satellite the size of a beach ball weighing at 183.9 pounds, that satellite was the birth of the Space Age. Months following the United States of America launched a satellite , Explorer 1. This gave us the first ever aerial photographs of our little blue planet. More than 2,500 satellites were orbiting earth at the end of the 20th century. Providing never before seen angles of Earth, scientific data, communications, radio signals, weather prediction, television broadcast, and global positioning systems.
The Earth has many different orbits, they are categorized by their altitude. The Low Earth Orbit or LEO is from 160kh to 2000km earth. Satellites in this orbit are mainly used by the government for surveillance and communications. The international space station is also in category. Following is the Medium Earth Orbit or MEO which is 2000km to 36,000 km with mostly GPS and navigation satellites. Third

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