How fast do a GPS satellites travel?

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1206698

2026-02-04 18:10

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This actually depends on the orbital radius, or distance from Earth's surface (or center). The further away the satellite is, the slower it travels to stay in orbit (related to Kepler's second law). A satellite that is really close to the atmosphere and barely in space needs to travel at about 7800m/s. A satellite can speed up and increase its tangential velocity to make its orbit bigger. A bigger orbit results in a lower speed. Interestingly, this means that an orbiter speeds up to slow down. Likewise, a satellite in a high orbit can fire its engines backwards to reduce its speed to get into a smaller, faster orbit, ultimately speeding up.

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In an orbit that's not a perfect circle, the speed in orbit is always changing.

The satellite moves faster when it's closer to the Earth, and slower when it's

farther out.

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