Guidance System for Satellite

[bot2600]

How would the guidance system on a satellite work? I always wondered about that.

Bot

 

[CTho9305]

what exactly are you asking? it is easy to detect acceleration, which you can compensate for. if you're asking about verifying that it is in the right spot... excellent question maybe they use gps

 

[dkozloski]

Most of the space craft I am familiar with used an inertial guidance platform; either mechanical or ring laser gyros. Final guidance was from ground based RADAR. Imagine lobbing the satellite through apartment house window thousands of miles away at a velocity variance of less that .01 meters/second and within one second of angle. This is average performance. With an ICBM imagine lobbing a missile at the pitchers mound of a baseball park from 2500 miles away. It will land inside the bases. Much less accuracy but requires no outside guidance.