Orbital shell (spaceflight)

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In spaceflight, an orbital shell is a set of artificial satellites in circular orbits at a certain fixed altitude.^[1]

Use in satellite constellations[]

In the design of satellite constellations, an orbital shell usually refers to a collection of circular orbits with the same altitude and, oftentimes, orbital inclination, distributed evenly in celestial longitude (and mean anomaly).^{[citation needed]} For a sufficiently high inclination and altitude the orbital shell covers the entire orbited body. In other cases the coverage extends up to a certain maximum latitude.^{[citation needed]}

Several existing satellite constellations typically use a single orbital shell. New large megaconstellations have been proposed that consist of multiple orbital shells.^[1][2]

List of orbital shells[]

See also[]

• Orbital mechanics

References[]

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