The Satellite Orbit Tier List
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- čas přidán 17. 06. 2024
- Space is filled with satellites in interesting orbits, but which one is best? A crash course in astrodynamics in the format of "the BBC if they decided make a tier list video".
0:00 Introduction
1:05 Very Low Earth
1:55 International Space Station
2:36 Walker Constellation
3:12 Sun Synchronous
4:00 GPS
4:46 Flower
6:09 GEO
7:07 Graveyard
7:50 Molniya
8:22 Tundra
8:44 QZSS
9:11 Distant Retrograde
9:49 Lagrange
10:43 Outroduction
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This video was brought to you by an unhealthy amount of coffee and our awesome Patrons at / atomicfrontier .
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Hi, I'm James. I explore the world looking for interesting engineering stories which explore complex issues in interesting ways. I hold a First-Class Honors in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Western Australia and am currently studying a Masters of Space Systems Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
My website is www.atomicfrontieronline.com, I occasionally tweet from / atomicfrontiers , and you can join the Atomic Frontier Discord server to talk about cool engineering stuff at / discord . You can help support my work and see some cool behind-the-scenes content at / atomicfrontier .
I had no idea there were so many orbits! The Flower ones still freak me out a little
Witch space station that dosent "oficially" exist on L3? 🧐
@@DMPTC "Official" designation: MA.NTSH
Move Along. Nothing to see here.
Personally I'm a fan of Horseshoe orbits. I'm not sure what they're good for, but the way they work is pretty cool.
I love that you showed KSP!
Same
if theres a meta-tierlist that ranks tierlists, this tierlist would be in the S tier.
That tier list would contain itself.
@@mluby7828 does a tier list of all tier lists contain itself? hmm, this problem sounds familiar for some reason...
@@samwolfenstein5239 it’s a paradoxical question.
@@samwolfenstein5239 Russell's paradox :D
@@samwolfenstein5239 the paradoxial question is does a list of all list that don't contain themselves contain itself not the ones that do HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHY IS THIS A PARADOX OF COURSE IT DOES
I find it hard not to put geostationary in S-tier, it's just so damn useful for so many things.
Honestly all of the geosynchronous orbits are pretty great. 1:1 is a nice one
exactly, as a space professional who has ever only known GEO its jarring to see it below SSO and especially GPS (MEO)
I'm sad that you used the ISS for LEO orbits and ignored the rest. IceSat 2, Terra (any of the EOS satellites really), almost any spy satellite, or even Fermi and Hubble at the upper edge would have been a better option to talk about. None of them have the wonky inclination problems the ISS has. The biggest benefits of LEO are the variety of orbit types (look at the sun-synchronous LEO orbit of the A-Train) and ease of accessibly; it is the orbit of choice for most missions. Remember when Hubble had a lens problem? it wasn't too hard to get up there and fix it. It was the orbit height of choice for the space shuttles. Need a new earth observation? Throw it in LEO. You don't need a massive amount of fuel or complicated burns to get your satellite up there. The downside is that because of the convenience it is now cluttered with thousands of objects; include debris from nations shooting rockets at satellites to prove a point. I would give LEO a solid B-tier; not impressive but the work-horse of orbits.
Where are you filming from? Was that BC/Vancouver? Where’s the snow in Australia?
@@DrNatemiester Boston.
He covered Sun Synchronous Orbits separately and put them in the A tier. But he could have said more about their use in Earth Observation applications.
So in other words, tiers can vary and different depending on the purpose of the satellite?
@@galactus21 yeah so in other words his tierlist is wrong?
I'm actually a bit surprised that you didn't straight up go to actual space and do a long one take coming back from a high orbit to a lower one. The quality of your channel kind of dictates that level of excellence. Next time, eh?
I guess I'll just have to be happy with this perfectly explained, expertly animated gem of orbital mechanics. 😀
Great video but a slight correction/clarification. The US government doesn’t limit precision like they used to. That was called Selective Availability and was ended in 2000.
I'm always a huge fan of any orbit where you get really complex and unintuitive interactions from mutliple bodies.
Being used to KSP style single-body SoI mechanics it's always a trip to see how things actually works in an N-Body system.
Yeah like how the Earth's bulginess affects orbits? How the heck do people ever make stable orbits???
@@porcuspine2368 Rotational equator would be mostly immune to this effect
Im studying them right now and its slightly more complex than ksp 😅
Love the game though
I'd highly recommend principia for ksp, it adds n-body orbital mechanics
Beautiful video! I'm not sure what it is, but the video quality of you in front of the camera looks pretty good, together with this interesting and funny topic and clear animations you did an amazing video!
Thanks!! Moved over to 4K for this episode and then I put all the footage through an AI to fine-tune the look a little. I also changed my rendering pipeline a bit. Glad that it looks like it worked!
@@AtomicFrontier You bet it worked! Looks amazing 😁
Your tier list is S tier.
'Lagrange orbits, because you can't call everything Euler!'
First of all, thank you for the subtitles. I know a lot of effort went into them and that effort is appreciated.
Second, thank you for the 3D motion tracking. It has kind of become a hallmark of your channel and it adds a ton to the production value.
Finally, how does this only have 11,530 views after 13 hours??
Hitting it out of the park again! Your on-location filming skills are out of this world
One might say "orbital"
Great video!! Some really amazing animations and shots in this one, was a ton of fun to watch!
Great video, and I especially liked the Lagrange/Euler commentary! 😄
Amazing work, as always, mate. 👏
Ummm I think this is my fav video of yours to date!!! You are awesome at making things I didn't ever think about really interesting and fun to watch and think about. And you are one of the channels whose videos I always want to look at vs just listen to. The visuals are so good 👍 ty for sharing ☺️
Thanks you! That honestly really means a lot right now, been a tough video this one
funny, informative, slick composition, and is totally getting a like, and im already sub'ed. well done dudes, please make more! tier lists are always fun! hugs from Atlanta GA! cheers! 😊
04:15 - That's trilateration (using distances to known positions), not triangulation (using bearing angles to known positions).
Also, GPS uses 4D space time calculations so that you don't actually need the receiver to *also* have a highly accurate atomic clock. Instead you just add a dimension, which means also needing an additional reference point, and learn not only where you are in 3D space, but also when you are in time.
aw snap, i literally just made this comment about trilateration instead of triangulation. Didnt know about the 4D space aspect -but makes sense cuz the calculations are time based. Cool! and thank you
@@bbbnuy3945 Yeah, until I was clued in about that part I was wondering HTF the GPS receivers had a good idea of the time so as to compare the incoming timestamps. Turns out they don't need to !
Your videos are already great but they keep getting better and better.
4:38 well not really, today GPS accuracy is not artificially limited, it's the ionosphere that cause signal distorsion and it's easy to correct it with RTK. Every modern farmer has RTK GPS to precisely guide the tractor on the fields with centimeter precision.
For civilians, RTK corrections can be acquired via radio or internet, and the military can get them directly from the satellite.
I would have never guessed that I would be able to watch a tier list of Satellite Orbits and enjoy it this much.
I never thought of seeing a moon orbit from the perspective of the earth. You gave me a whole new way to look at orbits. Thank you!
Great animation, great explanation, and the little captions were hilarious!
Those animations were great, and really helped sell your explanations. Well done!
I could listen to orbits and orbital mechanics being described for hours 😂
Fantastic explainer! Would also like to mention that some of those super-low-altitude sats might start using a kind of ion ramjet soon - where they use the atmosphere itself as propellant!
I'm so pleased you included lagrange points, easily my favourite :D
Wow, have I only now discovered your channel! Very informative and not too serious. Subbed!
great video. fun, quality
keep it going! love this channel
Wow! I graduated from Texas A&M and I had no idea the ‘flower petal’ orbits were developed by an Aggie! Very interesting video thanks
Insane production quality and good video keep it up!
Thank you so much for this very beautiful video!!!
You're really getting good at this man Keep it up!
I work for a GPS company and didn't know about four of these! Thanks for putting together this video!
Fantastic video! Loved it! Educated and entertained.
crazy how all the visuals are on point. nice vid!
Seeing the title of the video I was honestly rooting for Sun-Synchronous Orbit since it's so nice and geeky. Solid A tier material :D.
I love (and was totally surprised by) the Seagulls (Stop it Now) appearance!
This is genuinely top tier content, definitely on path to become one of the explanation gang
Fantastic stuff! Probably the highest-quality tier list video I've ever seen. I especially enjoyed the mischief at 10:30 😂
Great Video James. love the Douglas Adams reference and the FSM cameo (may you be touched by his noodly appendage)
Really good video Loved the animations!!
Awesome video a always, but too short. For some of the orbits I'd wished for some more explanations and how they work in general.
Thanks! Original script was closer to 30 minutes, but I've been trying to keep them closer to 10. Might do a follow-up with some of the individual orbits sometime
@@AtomicFrontier Maybe running it over your patreon would be of interest to you, since I assume you want to keep your watch time percentage up. It also helps that your dedicated viewers are usually the ones more interested in the "extended version", hence there might be an increase in your patreon sub-count :) .
@@AtomicFrontier If you did release this on Nebula, I would pay you extras.
Very entertaining way to discuss the orbits
Just when I asked myself "Hey what happened to The Atomic Frontier" there you are with another banger video. =D
Thanks! These episodes are starting to take an obscene amout of time and effort to produce (plus my thesis is due next month) so it's been hard to keep up the production rate! Glad you enjoyed it!
@@AtomicFrontier Yes you put an insane amount of effort into your videos which is highly appreciated. If only the algorithm valued quality over quantity, too. But since it doesn't anyway, feel free to take as much time off for your thesis (and also some rest afterwards). All the best for you! =)
P.s.: turns out I actually missed your last video so the break felt extra long. ^^
So awesome! I’m a grad student at MIT as well. Would be surreal to see you walking down the infinite! Good luck with your studies, and where’s that fire tower where you filmed at? I would guess somewhere in Maine.
Nice! Yup if you see me come say hi! That was up in Arcadia National Park Maine, stayed in a place called Bah Harbour - definitely reccomend for when it's a bit warmer
@@AtomicFrontier Oh yeah Acadia and Bah Hahbah is definitely on my list!
Excellent video! I don't have much to add but it's worth commenting for the algorithm!
3:26 THANK YOU FOR EXPLAINING PURTUBATIONS
Literally the hardest thing to get a straight answer from professors about when discussing orbits
Orbital perturbations come from a variety of sources (technically every single particle in the universe is perturbing the orbit of every other particle in the universe) and orbital mechanics as a whole is not solved (this is known as the "3-body" or "N-body" problem where there is no known way to analyze an orbit and determine to infinity what happens to it) so if you're asking questions of professors on this subject, either narrow down your questions or realize that you may be asking a question that is the subject of current mathematical and theoretical research.
This is the first video of yours I’ve ever seen and it’s awesome, thank you! You’re gonna be the next Tom Scott/ Matt Parker/ Steve Mold aren’t you?! You’re gonna make me learn complex stuff easily and in an entertaining way, aren’t you!? 🥳👍
Hope so!
Loved the video James! :)
Love it. Used to be a sat com geek. I use an app now that finds most birds. It's nuts how stacked up they are
EXCELLENT & BRILLIANT CHOICES... THANKS..! I've LEARNED at lot. 😊 I LOVED 😍 DOCUMENTARIES...like so SPACE JUNKS.
Amazing and comprehensive video! This channel belongs in the S tier!
Very nice vid!
I love this!!!
I’m just gonna carry on being heliocentric- just started my 50th orbit
Love your channel space is amazing ❤
Didnt know i needed this!
Loved this one mate
lovely little video
Great presentation 👍
Looking forward for the next video: Atomic orbitals ranked list :D
Wow, what a great video!
Bro casually walking around Acadia while explaining orbits, what a legend
Thanks, I was wondering where this was filmed. Beautiful.
@@conroywhitney no problem. Acadia national park in Maine, it’s a beautiful place. It’s about an hour and a half away from where I live, I definitely recommend.
Great vid!
Incredible video!
Hey James amazing video. Great production quality, and humor too!
One correction is that GPS doesn’t use triangulation- they use trilateration to calculate precise position, elevation too. The difference is that triangulation measures angles from 3 different points to work out position, whereas trilateration measures distance (using speed of light travel times) to the GPS receiver to pinpoint x,y,z location. Trilateration requires 4 satellites, yet it still has tri as a prefix.. weird right?
Anyways thanks for the video, and for blessing us with top tier content ^.^
Thanks! Might be worth a followup video!
Heyyy, Mount Desert Island! Brave to visit in the winter, but what a fun easter egg for a background!
Nice spotting! Yup we had to delay it a week... origionally was scheduled for that weekend with "the coldest temperatures in a decade" or something equally aweful to film in
Love your videos
Ok wait HOLD THE F8CK ON. This is the first time you’ve ever appeared on my feed, and you have NO RIGHT having such a fkn ICE COLD intro for you 11m science infotainment video! 🤯👍
Fantastic content
Amazing sound choice
The only tier list video that should exist.
Another video I didn't know I needed until I saw it.
Didn't knew i need this tier list, but i did.
love that you went to acadia just to film a space video
Fantastic effort, great locations!
Thanks! All filmed up in Arcadia National Park, such a cool place!
@@AtomicFrontier No way! I thought I recognized it. I've been in that same place many times. Small correction-*Acadia
this is a really nice video
Cracking stuff!
Amazing video
The amount of jokes and level of snark on this video are through the roof, and I love it! 😂
Loved it!
the demonstration of gravity with the trampoline, very nice
Nice video 😊
amazing video. i actually never knew what lagrange points were until now, but i always thought they were incredibly wierd, because how do you determine a point and just call it L something? for me it was always some sci-fi shenanigans that some writer just thought up to make space not as empty
Space - ✅
Memes - ✅
Randomly popping up in my CZcams recommendations - ✅
A tier list on a subject I know nothing about - ✅
This video really does have it all.
This is awsome 😊
Interesting video! Thank you! You need more subscribers.
Thanks! I really suck at making the vidoes "clickable" but hopefully the people who do watch enjoy!
it doesn't work as great at higher "LATITUDES" not "ALTITUDES". Great presentation, graphics and production values! Keep doing this!!!
A description of what S,A,B,C,D,F stand for (if anything) would be good. Otherwise, a lot of very good information on why and where satellites go around the Earth.
A Fron-Tier list!
"The ships hung in the sky much the same way that bricks don't", I love me some D.N.A. refrences.
i like the KSP clips for L1-L5
Great video! BTW at 6:28 your colour correction turns off, perhaps an adjustment layer the wrong length?
this channel is just amazing and so underrated! I want to write a flattering comment but I really don't know hot to write so here is a comment I wrote using ChatGPT instead. I agree with every word though!
Dear Atomic Frontier,
I just watched your video "Orbits From The Ground Up" and I have to say that it was an excellent and informative explanation of the different kinds of satellite orbits. I especially appreciated the clear and concise way that you explained the complex topics, making it easy for even a layperson like me to understand.
Despite the fact that your channel has over 203k subscribers, I still feel that it is underrated. Your content is well-researched and presented in a way that is both entertaining and educational. I hope that more people will discover your channel and appreciate the quality of your videos.
Thank you for creating such a fantastic video and I look forward to watching more of your content in the future.
Best regards,
[Your Name]
Dear Commentor,
I am beyond grateful for your thoughtful and heartfelt comment on my video "Orbits From The Ground Up." It warms my heart to know that my efforts to create informative and entertaining content are being appreciated by viewers like you.
Your words have truly lifted my spirits and fueled my passion for creating more space-related videos. It's comments like these that keep me motivated to explore the final frontier and bring it closer to Earth.
As a token of my appreciation, I'd like to offer you some space-related puns that I hope will bring a smile to your face:
"Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything." In this case, I'm glad you trusted my explanations in the video.
"Why don't aliens eat clocks? Because they prefer 'spacetime' for breakfast." I think even aliens would agree that the concepts of orbits and satellite positioning can be complex and time-consuming to understand.
"Why did the astronaut break up with his girlfriend? Because he needed space." But seriously, I'm grateful for the space you've given me to share my love for space exploration and satellite orbits with a wider audience.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to leave such a wonderful comment. It means the world to me.
Yours sincerely,
Atomic Frontier [via ChatGPT]
I remember when I was a kid and went to NASA KSC they showed an IMAX short film about a space station at Earth-Moon L5 called L5
I could be wrong, but isn't a distant retrograde orbit a form of Lagrange orbit? I know the artimis program uses a form of halo orbit using the Earth-Moon L2. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I'd add that. Great video!
One small gripe: There are Lagrange points in any parent/satellite orbital system, not just the Sun-Earth system.
As a gundam fan I always get excited when someone mentions lagrange points
I find it funny how you just ignored L3 in the Lagrange orbit ( 9:49 ), it’s actually a really interesting one so I wanted to talk about it.
The L3 Lagrange orbit is a theoretical unstable orbit where small objects pulled by the sun and earth will orbit perfectly behind the sun at all times, usually used in science fiction as Planet X (sadly it’s to unstable to hold a planet and it would have a gravitational background we would notice so no Planet X 😢). L3 can be used to track and observe the far side of the sun and can also be used as a place to observe asteroids we can’t see because of the sun, it would also be a good location to hide out of site so if there’s any space pirates out there needing to hide start taking notes. Over all L3 is one of the most unstable of the 5 and would need constant adjustment just like L1 and L2, but it is pretty interesting to imagine there’s something out there we can’t see.
I am also super interested in the L3 point! I was confused by what he said about about the space station that doesnt exist. I felt that the text over the kerbals, yzc0p5qh2cw, was something important but no, its the unique youtube url for a fucking vaporwave rick roll. Dude got me so good.
Bro, did you just make me rick roll myself??? I just wanted to learn more about the L3 point 🤣🤣🤣🤣
6:11 nice HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference
Love the HHGTTG reference @6:11