Visualizing Geocentric Orbital Coordinates
A 3D view of a Keplerian geocentric orbital coordinate system that might be used for launching and tracking a satellite orbiting Earth. Animated in Blender. If you have any points of clarification please leave a comment! There are a few caveats here for artistic purposes:
Periapse (Perigee when referring to Earth), the point closest to the parent body, is not defined for a perfectly circular orbit. You need eccentricity (i.e., an elliptical orbit) for references to periapse to make sense. Hopefully a circle gets the point across just as well - it's much easier to animate!
Another artistic change: In the real world, the Earth rotates under the satellite, so the satellite's ground track (position over the Earth) would not line up exactly after each orbit. I did not include the Earth's rotation here in order to make the video loop.
And finally, the moon is probably not the right size here, since I didn't calculate the correct apparent diameter for this scene.
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_elements
Music: Harris Heller - Further