On 04/17/2013 8:06 PM, Steve Willner wrote:
In article ,
Smit Kamal writes:
I was wondering if a satellite is in sun synchronous orbit and
if it completes 14 orbits per day then will the satellite be passing over
one particular location on the earth twice a day.ie 7 am in morning and 7 p
m at evening or will it pass over one location on the earth only once.

Twice a day, once going northbound and once southbound. Imagine
yourself near the Sun looking back at the Earth with the satellite
going round. From that perspective, the Earth rotates once in 24
hours, and a given spot on Earth (at least a spot not near either
pole) passes under the satellite path twice.

As I said in an other post, if it passes exactly over your head while
northbound, it is unlikely to past exactly over your head while southbound.

Of course, because not all days are 24 hours according to apparent solar
time, if the satellite passes exactly over your head, it is unlikely to
pass again exactly over your head 24 hours later. So one can assume less
precision and then yes, there will be one orbit where it will pass "not
too far" from your location on the southbound leg, but in that case "not
too far" could be about 13 degrees of longitude for a satellite doing 14
orbits per day.


Alain Fournier