Angular Velocity Orbit Question

Question

A weather satellite completes a circular orbit around earth every 3 h. The satellite is 2500 km above the earth, and the radius of the earth is 6400 km. How far does the satellite travel in 1 min to the nearest kilometre?

Answer 1

Since the satellite is 2500 km above the earth and the radius of earth is 6400 km, the radius of the circular orbit is 6500+2400 or 8900 km.

Thus the length of the orbit is 2πr=2x(3.14)x 8900 km= 55892 km

Since it travels this orbit in 3 h or 180 min

The length it can travel in one min = 55892/180 km= 310.5 km