Good point.
I would ask ..... Wouldn't all satellite tracking have to have a base starting point that it continues to track from?
Where would that starting point be for each satellite tracked?
In other words ...... Would the exact same coordinace be used for each satellite, or do the starting points vary, and thus the math varies?
I ask because I do not know.
AMR is probably the better one to explain it. I know enough to be dangerous and that's about it. But in a general sense, every part of a satellite system needs to know "where" it is relative to everything else. So the commands it receives (and sends) to reorient angles that antennae are pointed at (for example) and where the satellite in the sky needs to be (relative to the earth and its earth station) have to be precise or else it just plain won't work. As long as all the pieces of equipment in the satellite system are operating on the same coordinate system, then they can each send and receive valid commands that are interpreted the same way by each component. If the earth is assumed to be a ball (for simplicity) and it is, in reality, flat, then the systems have to do different calculations to determine what direction they have to go (even defining what "direction" is becomes a problem). So one issue is whether they are tracking over a curved surface or a flat one.
I'm not sure if that even approaches a decent answer to your question...
It is good enough, Nickolai.
It gets even more complicated when considering low earth orbiting satellites, such as in the Iridium system.
View attachment 26292
Each satellite in the iridium constellation communicates with ground stations, mobile phones, and
one another via cross-link communications. A satellite design must include the right assumptions about where and when it will be in communications range of the ground stations, the mobile phones, and other satellites.
A call from someone in Saudi Arabia to someone in Australia has the "connection" established by the ground uplink and ground downlink earth stations. Between these two ground stations, the "connection" is routed through a system of satellites in low earth orbit. If the calculations based upon Keplerian equations for eccentric, mean, and true anomaly are incorrect, no communications would be possible between two persons using the sat phones.
Imagine the complications of such a system if the flat earth is a "secret" reality. We that programmed these communications operations assume various global earth parameters such that communications are effective. Now the flat earther would have us believe that someone in a secret cabal comes along later in the software and hardware development cycle to modify all our design efforts to fit the flat earth view. In other words a team of a dozen or more designers have their work undone by some "shadow" organization...and we uninformed dupes are all unaware of this.
If you are familiar with hardware and software design cycles, think about the software and hardware integration, testing, bug fixing, etc., this clued in "shadow" design team would have to deal with, and how it is kept secret from us uninformed designers. And presumably all these shadow organization engineers are willingly going along with the ruse, despite their ethical engineering standards, and at least some of them being Christians. Furthermore, it has been going on for many, many, years assuming space exploration plans and undertakings by dozens and dozens of companies in the aerospace industry.
Then, along the same assumptions, consider the after launch ongoing maintenance and upgrades of the system. Integrated software into hardware on mission critical designs are signed with digital hashes for integrity checks. Support teams must again be dualities, one team of the uniformed, the other of the secret flat earth cabal, the former working independently on upgrades while the secret team comes along and twiddles with the design.
The screens on computers in a satellite system operations center are displaying real-time information about satellite positioning and orbits. Again, per the flat earth proponent, these screens are actually just animations, and the actual real, flat earth real-time screens are in front of operations center personnel someplace else. So you have two teams of operational support staff, making changes, tweaks, etc., and some fantastic software underlying all of the screen work to keep track of what is really needed to be changed, tweaked, etc.
The designs incorporated into software and hardware also include accounting for pertubations in the earth's spherical structure. There is an equatorial
bump of of the globe that decreases the distance between the earth and the satellite when passing over that region that must be accounted for in communications designs. This bump is irrelevant for geosynchronous satellites, but for the low earth variety, it must be accounted for in satellite system design. Furthermore, the centrifugal forces upon the satellite are impacted by this "bump" along with the other centrifugal forces of the globe of the earth. We must design these "bump factors" into the hardware and software to keep the satellite from internally flying apart in space.
Furthermore, and not generally known to the public, these satellite communications systems must have their security protocols accepted by the NSA. NSA reps are present in the design reviews for these communications protocols. They have access to all the code and hardware design documentation. Why? Obviously so they can understand the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed system and exploit them to their own needs for government security and intelligence.
Naturally explains why in all my years of designing cellular radio and satellite based systems using cellular radio technology, I have yet to hear an NSA rep at a design review say, "
You know, if you just tweak this algorithm by adding {yada yada}, your system would be harder to crack." Instead the usual refrain is to suggest removal of some polynomial function in a complicated algorithmic iteration, thus decreasing the computing power required to brute force crack encryption schemes.
If the design team fails to get NSA's stamp of approval, the satellite technology becomes classified as an
exported munition, subject to Presidential level authority for export of the technology to various foreign nations. Even the sat-phones themselves would fall under this onerous export requirement. Accordingly, the encryption tech in the system is tough to crack, but not something that prevents the NSA from access. If a manufacturer insists on not abiding by the NSA requirements, their ability to export tech to certain countries becomes a bureaucratic nightmare. Per the flat earth conspiracy wonks, even the NSA is a party to the ruse being perpetrated upon the public.
For anyone interested in the technical aspects of this topic:
https://physics.info/orbital-mechanics-1/
http://www.braeunig.us/space/orbmech.htm
https://sourceforge.net/projects/fortytwospacecraftsimulation/ (see actual software examples)
http://ge.tt/4WovY8p2 (Microsoft Powerpoint presentation in pdf format..click
Download link to the left of the page)
How anyone having any inkling of what goes on in designing hardware and software on a large scale could entertain there is conspiracy of such a magnitude as described above escapes me.
AMR