Medium Earth orbit(MEO)

Medium Earth orbit(MEO)

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"MEO" redirects here. For other uses, see MEO (disambiguation).

This article may be confusing or unclear to readers. Please help clarify the article; suggestions may be found on the talk page. (February 2009)

Various earth orbits to scale; Yellow represents medium earth orbit

To-scale diagram of low, medium and high earth orbits

Medium Earth orbit (MEO), sometimes called intermediate circular orbit (ICO), is the region of space around the Earth above low Earth orbit (altitude of 2,000 kilometres (1,243 mi)) and below geostationary orbit (altitude of 35,786 kilometres (22,236 mi)).^[1]

The most common use for satellites in this region is for navigation, such as the GPS (with an altitude of 20,200 kilometres (12,552 mi)), Glonass (with an altitude of 19,100 kilometres (11,868 mi)) and Galileo (with an altitude of 23,222 kilometres (14,429 mi)) constellations. Communications satellites that cover the North and South Pole are also put in MEO.^[2]

The orbital periods of MEO satellites range from about 2 to 24 hours.^[3] Telstar, one of the first and most famous experimental satellites, orbits in MEO.^[4]

The orbit has a moderate number of satellites.