how dose a satellite work?
553089
Most modern satellites have similar basic parts and most have extra parts for their special needs. They have generally three basic parts. They are a radar system which is used to measure the height from the earths surface, receivers and transmitters to receive and send out signals, usually radio or micro waves, they also have small altitude control nozzles that squirt out puffs of gas to tilt the satellite to change it’s altitude or direction. These are also known as thrusters or sometimes ‘puffers'. Most satellites have special equipment for their special needs. For example Research satellites may have telescopes and antennae that they point into space to receive rays from deep in space, Survsat (survey satellites) have telescopes, cameras and other sensors to view the earth’s surface and Comsat (communications satellites) have various antennae and thousands of transponders (automatic devices used to receive and send radio signals) each one dealing with a radio or telephone signal, or dealing with part of a Television channel. All of the equipment is built by electronics experts and aerospace engineers who give satellite makers a range that they can choose from. Some satellite makers sell their satellites commercially and their satellites can cost you in excess of US$15million and can take up to two years to build. Custom satellites can also be made for individual needs but these can take double the time and can cost up to five times as much. It can be seen that the satellite business is a very costly one.\n\nSatellites electronics have to be powered and are usually sone so with the help of the sun. Satellites have large panels, which fold out and contain many solar cells. Although this is the case for half of the satellites orbit it is in total darkness and therefore it needs to have a battery to power it, which most satellites do. These batteries as recharged by the solar panels and then continue to power the satellite during the time of darkness.
83795
There are literally thousands of satellites in orbit capable of both receiving and transmitting radio signals. Some of their names are Telstar, Comsat (Communication satellites), Cosmos 1602, GOES 7, Landsat 5, NOAA 12, Radarsat, and Seasat 1 (weather satellites).
591485
there are many ways to connect a computer to a satellite. \nhttp://www.get-direcway.com/promotions2.htm for Internet\nyou can use a short wave radio and your sound card for weather fax or a terminal node controller a 2 meter radio and talk to a satellite. http://www.mfjenterprises.com/index.php
984768
Not only do they search for radio signals, but they search for patterns or data within the signals.\n\nThis is accomplished with many listening stations and some distributed resource calculations.  They get volunteers to run some of the code on home PCs.\n\nThe code executes a Fast Fourier Transform and converts the raw signal into frequencies.  Noise is quickly discernible from a signal.  Then it has to be proved that this was not from a terrestrial source of from a man-made satellite.\n\nSo far no luck.
1100589
Here is one of the best computer satellite cards. http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_nexus.html\nHere is some software to use with it.\nhttp://www.progdvb.com\nhttp://www.dvbcore.com/
223438
When people talk about "a GPS," they usually mean a GPS receiver. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is actually a constellation of 27 Earth-orbiting satellites (24 in operation and three extras in case one fails). The U.S. military developed and implemented this satellite network as a military navigation system, but soon opened it up to everybody else. \n\nA GPS receiver's job is to locate four or more of these satellites, figure out the distance to each, and use this information to deduce its own location. This operation is based on a simple mathematical principle called trilateration.\n\nUse the link below for further explanation:
540687
An active satellite is a one that generates power for its own functioning.\n\nA passive satellite needs external power supply for its operation. The external power supply may be provided with solar cells etc.
999979
The signal from the satellite is a microwave signal of a little more than a centimeter in wavelength. That means they will not pass through any metal with a hole smaller than that dimension, but instead are reflected. Microwaves are reflected from metal very much like light is reflected from metals. The satellite dish that appears to be plastic or fiberglass actually has metal embedded within it. Any type of metal, including copper, will work. The metal most commonly used is aluminum or steel.\n\nThe metal mesh is not used because of its conductive properties. Its conductivity is irrelevant. It is acting as a reflector and because of the parabolic shape of the dish is reflecting the signal in concentrated form into the receiver that sets over the front of the dish. \n\nI seriously doubt that any satellite dishes have silver in them, and using copper would be a waste of money, since copper is much more expensive than steel or aluminum. It is even possible to build a satellite dish out of chicken wire or screen wire. The wire is close enough together to reflect the microwaves. However, the shape is critical, and the plastic or fiberglass is designed to keep the critical shape. \n\nHere are some diagrams:\nhttp://www.mlesat.com/antennas.html\nThe microwave spectrum (in centimeters):\nhttp://meted.ucar.edu/npoess/microwave_topics/overview/print.htm#s1p2\nManufacture of dishes:\nhttp://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Satellite-Dish.html
912790
Here are some of the questions you need to answer first. Is this a geosynchronous satellite (which means stationary with respect to our view from earth), or a low earth orbiting (LEO) satellite. LEO satellite goes around the earth, typically once every 90-100 minutes. Are the signals powerful enough to do it from your home satellite dish, like that of DirecTV. Do you know the frequency? Do you know where in space it is? There are web sites where you may be able to find the locations of these satellites. Do you have the right equipment, e.g. descrambling signals that may be scrambled. Trying to install a DishTV or DirecTV dish all by yourself is the best exercise to gain some experience in this.
791813
There are two basic types of meteorological satellites: geostationary and polar orbiting.\n\nGeostationary weather satellites orbit the Earth above the equator at altitudes of 35,880 km (22,300 miles). Because of this orbit, they remain stationary with respect to the rotating Earth and thus can record or transmit images of the entire hemisphere below continuously with their visible-light and infrared sensors. The news media use the geostationary photos in their daily weather presentation as single images or made into movie loops.\n\nPolar orbiting weather satellites circle the Earth at a typical altitude of 850 km (530 miles) in a north to south (or vice versa) path, passing over the poles in their continuous flight. Polar satellites are in sun-synchronous orbits, which means they are able to observe any place on Earth and will view every location twice each day with the same general lighting conditions due to the near-constant local solar time. Polar orbiting weather satellites offer a much better resolution than their geostationary counterparts due their closeness to the Earth.\n\nplease see the full article \n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_satellite
1045080
The 24 (or so, or is it 26, anyway...) GPS satellites orbit the earth in such a manner that at any given time a GPS receiver will receive a signal from at least two of them.  By means of triangulation using distance measurements gained from radio wave emissions [measure the time it takes for the transmission traveling at light speed to get from receiver to satellite and back], the GPS user can determine their position on the planet.  Military GPS are much more accurate than civilian versions.  Also, the timing involved has to take into account Einstein's special theory of relativity since time dilation occurs due to motion and distance from a gravity well.  In other words, a clock in the receiver will actually measure a second differently than the clock in one of the satellites.  So, computers onboard both compensate and perform the necessary calculations to give the GPS user the right coordinates.
534759
Satellites. For cell phones, a radio signal is sent to a tower and then to a satellite and back down and to the other phone. For GPS, a signal is sent directly and so the user's location is more exact. For remote controls, the remote sends a signal to the object through the thing on the top and that is received by the sensor on the object.
98059
The short answer is: No one really knows, since the details are classified. Also, the current satellite performance is probably not as good as what it CAN be. \n\nI think that comparing what astronomers are able to do with what the best satellites are able to do can be a bit misleading. \n\n1. The space telescope does not have to look through the air, with the water vapor and turbulence and dust. The space telescope has only the very outer reaches of the atmosphere to look through. \n\n2. The space telescope and ground-based astronomers do not have at their disposal anywhere near the resources that governmental organizations do. For example, the space telescope was not even calibrated, because there was so little money! It was only because of heroic efforts and a few minor miracles that the space telescope was brought into focus. The space telescope is basically a toy, and has barely been able to get funded for the last few years, and might be soon decommissioned. \n\n3. Astronomers just do not have the interest, the background, the training, the knowledge, or the resources to command the type of bleeding-edge technology that governments do. Astronomers for the most part are mired in phenomenology, and do not worry much about the details of pedestrian things like optics. Optics is, in general, disparaged by astronomers and left to the "engineers" and other lesser beings like mathematicians, physicists, statisticians, computer scientists, etc. Basically, astronomers hurt themselves with their attitudes and their culture. \n\n4. No responsible government is going to announce what they are capable of seeing with their satellites. All of this material is very closely held at best, and most likely highly classified. \n\n5. It is well known (or at least often reported in the newspapers, so it might not be correct) that spy satellites are so big and so heavy because they bring a large reserve of fuel with them so that they can be lowered and raised as needed to see various features and details. Apparently, they do not always orbit at the same altitude. \n\n6. It is quite possible to combine imagery from platforms such as multiple satellites, planes, high altitude balloons, etc. to improve resolution considerably. It is hard to know the extent to which this is done, or if it is done, because of course the area is shrouded in secrecy, so we do not know. But the question was, how detailed CAN it be? Well you COULD use multiple sensors on multiple platforms, unlike the Hubble telescope (in fact, multiple sensors on the ground are able to beat Hubble now). \n \n7. As a gross upper bound on resolution limits, look at the mutually agreed upon limits on size of warheads etc by the Russians/FSU/USSR and the USA, for example (typically, the silo doors would reportedly be opened to permit treaty inspections, according to newspaper accounts anyway). These specifications in the treaties imply MUCH higher resolution than the some of the numbers given here by others. And remember, these are the mutually agreed-upon resolutions by two very suspicious adversaries, who do not want to give anything away. Both have to be able to achieve these resolutions, and probably are capable of far better resolution. \n\n8. Having looked at Dawe's limit, and knowing a bit about resolution, I can tell you that it is not particularly useful as an indicator of achievable resolution. How close we are able to come to ultimate resolutions depends on how many resources we are willing to spend, and again since it is classified, it is difficult to know.\n\nTherefore, to answer the question how detailed can satellite imagery be? The answer is, VERY. How detailed is it? We do not know, since it is classified.
692223
Yes, you can downlink fro a satellite.  However most people do not have a sufficient power plant to uplike to a satellite.  There you need a hard wired connection,.
409966
A geostationary orbit is when a satellite circles earth in the EQUATORIAL plane in an orbit in the same direction of Earth's rotation and with a time period (time taken to complete one revolution) equal to that of the earth. In simple terms, the satellite stays over the same spot all the time.\n\nA geosynchronous orbit may have a different period, and may be over different spots at different times.
144357
A radio relay station in orbit above the earth that receives, amplifies and redirects analog and digital signals contained within a carrier frequency. There are three kinds. Geostationary (GEO) satellites are in orbit 22,282 miles above the earth and rotate with the earth, thus appearing stationary. The downlink from GEOs back to earth can be localized into small areas or cover as much as a third of the earth's surface.\n\nLow-earth orbit (LEO) satellites reside no more than 1,000 miles above the earth and revolve around the globe every couple of hours. They are only in view for a few minutes, and multiple LEOs are required to maintain continuous coverage. Medium-earth orbit (MEO) satellites are in the middle, taking about six hours to orbit the earth and in view for a couple of hours.\n\nI hope this helps...\n\nDon
550313
Communications satellites allow telephone and data conversations to be relayed through the satellite. Typical communications satellites include Telstar and Intelsat. The most important feature of a communications satellite is the transponder -- a radio that receives a conversation at one frequency and then amplifies it and retransmits it back to Earth on another frequency. A satellite normally contains hundreds or thousands of transponders. Communications satellites are usually geosynchronous.