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Heliosynchronous orbit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Heliostationary orbit)
This article is about a class of orbits about the sun. For a class of orbits around the earth, see sun-synchronous orbit.
By analogy with the geosynchronous orbit, a heliosynchronous orbit is a heliocentric orbit where the satellite's period of revolution matches the Sun's period of rotation. These orbits occur at a radius of 24.360 Gm (0.1628 AU) around the Sun, a little less than half of the orbital radius of Mercury.
Similar to the geostationary orbit, the heliostationary orbit is the heliosynchronous orbit of inclination zero and eccentricity zero, so that the satellite would appear stationary to an observer on the Sun's surface.
To date, no satellites have been put in this kind of solar orbit.
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