A satellite is any body, natural or artificial, in orbit around a planet. The term is used most often to describe moons and spacecraft. Rockets deliver satellites to Space where they can begin to do their important work.

You have probably used satellites for your daily tasks already today. There are at least 6,000 satellites that orbit the Earth.

Here are some of the good things they help with:

• Crops
• Weather patterns
• Communications
• Navigation
• Imagery of the Earth below.

A satellite that is close to the Earth, in what is called a ‘Low Earth Orbit’, travels at approximately 17,500 miles per hour. Some satellites operate even higher. The higher it is, the slower it needs to travel to stay in orbit.

In Low Earth Orbit, it takes about 90 minutes to go around the Earth once. Just an hour and a half to get around the whole world!

Look at this simple video – some of the stats are a bit out of date, so see if you can spot them: What is a Satellite?