How do satellites stay in orbit and not fall to Earth or drift to space?

Answer 1

Well they do both, but the simple answer is that they find the altitude where, at the launch velocity, the force needed to curve them around the earth exactly matches the force of gravity. For any given speed there are lots of orbits because they can be circular at the exact altitude but tilted at various degrees to the axis of the earth or they can be ellipses close to the earth at one end and farther out at the other.
If a satellite does not have correction thrusters and fuel then the small amount of air will slow them down gradually and they will drift closer to earth until friction heating burns them up.

Answer 2

Imagine you are on top of a mountain, and you fire a ball from a cannon. The ball flies out of the barrel horizontally, and (ignoring air resistance) its horizontal velocity stays the same. But its vertical velocity, which started as zero, increases, causing it to curve downwards.

But let's say you give it a LOT of gunpowder. If you shoot the ball fast enough, by the time the ball has fallen 10 feet downward, the surface of the Earth itself will have curved away by 10 feet. This speed puts the cannonball into orbit. It falls exactly as fast as the Earth's surface curves.

If you shoot it faster so it only drops 5 feet by the time the Earth's surface curves away by 10 feet, it will get further and further from the Earth. If you make it less, it will spiral in and hit the Earth. But if you get the speed exactly right, it precisely matches the curvature of the planet and stays in orbit.

Answer 3

They are falling, but they are going so fast sideways (parallel to the earth) that they fall around it... If you use a rocket to accelerate the spacecraft, it moves away from the earth and slows down- a higher orbit has more energy, so when you accelerate you add energy and go higher. Likewise if you use retro rockets to slow down, you descend (your path gets closer to the earth) and go FASTER!

Orbital mechanics can be confusing... but it's really just the sum of the acceleration from gravity toward the earth combined with the forward speed.

Answer 4

Satellites are in free fall around the earth. They are just moving so fast they never hit the ground. A good way to imagine this if you throw a baseball it goes pretty far before it hits the earth. If you throw it harder it goes farther before it hits the earth. If you could throw it hard enough it would go all the way around the earth before it hits the ground. A satellite in orbit is like the baseball that has been thrown hard enough so that it goes all the way around the earth before it hits the ground. Hope this helps.

Answer 5

They are moving rapidly and an simplistic way o thing of it is that they move forward and the same rate they and it averages out to an orbit.

Answer 6

gravity