The Satellite Orbit Tier List

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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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.

[AtomicFrontier]

I had no idea there were so many orbits! The Flower ones still freak me out a little

[nyuh]

if theres a meta-tierlist that ranks tierlists, this tierlist would be in the S tier.

[jakobrosenqvist]

I find it hard not to put geostationary in S-tier, it's just so damn useful for so many things.

[axthelm]

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.

[rileywilbur]

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.

[playgroundchooser]

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. 😀

[anonnymousperson]

Your tier list is S tier.
'Lagrange orbits, because you can't call everything Euler!'

[FianFreigeist]

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!

[Somerandom]

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.

[_AvaGlass]

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??

[AthAthanasius]

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.

[Nekzuris]

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.

[ReliableDragon]

Great video!! Some really amazing animations and shots in this one, was a ton of fun to watch!

[resurgam_b]

I could listen to orbits and orbital mechanics being described for hours 😂

[solidmagmr]

I would have never guessed that I would be able to watch a tier list of Satellite Orbits and enjoy it this much.

[LV-qrfr]

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 ☺️

[danem.]

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

[DrBunnyMedicinal]

Great video, and I especially liked the Lagrange/Euler commentary! 😄

Amazing work, as always, mate. 👏

[BartJBols]

1:00 This is actually completely wrong? In order to get a high orbit (and keep it) you need to go faster, a lower orbit is slower. The only difference is that it takes less time to orbit 1 full circle in low orbit because it needs to pass less distance.

[Cinebon]

Bro casually walking around Acadia while explaining orbits, what a legend