Manned Orbiting Laboratory Orbit Profile (IMAGE)

University of Texas at Austin, Texas Advanced Computing Center

Manned Orbiting Laboratory Orbit Profile

Caption

The MOL mission profile as a function of orbit longitude, latitude and altitude. The high inclination orbit requires passes directly over the northern and southern polar regions. The inclination, shown on the figure as i, is defined as the angle between the orbital path and the Earth's equator. The large arrows highlight the north versus southbound direction of the ground tracks. Here we can easily see that lower altitudes correspond to the area around Russia and the highest altitudes are during transversal of the polar regions, minimizing the exposure to cosmic rays and energetic solar protons.

Credit

Jeffrey Chancellor, Texas A&M

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