Schematic diagram illustrating the geometry of a sun-synchronous orbit for the morning descending node of Landsat.
Space Oblique Mercator projection applied to the sphere for two orbits. Heavy line indicates satellite groundtrack; dashed lines, scan; orbit inclination, 99°; period, 103 minutes
Schematic diagram illustrating the seasonal illumination variations on a sun-synchronous orbit. This schematic appears in the Landsat-6 Programming and Control Handbook that was prepared by Martin Marietta Astro Space in 1993.
Schematic diagram showing distribution of reflected radiation from a diffuse reflector.