Roy Smith wrote in news:roy-
:

The Sirius Satellite Radio (www.sirius.com) says:

"our three state-of-the-art satellites that rotate in figure eight,
geo-synchronous orbits around the earth"

I know what a geo synchronous orbit is, but what's the "figure eight"
part all about?

A geosynchronous orbit with a non-zero inclination angle will have a
groundtrack resembling a figure eight. See:

http://celestrak.com/columns/v04n07/

(Many people use the term geosynchronous when they really mean
geostationary, which can cause confusion when dealing with orbits with non-
zero inclination or eccentricity.)


--
JRF

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