Communications of the ACM
Orbit Design
Credit: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
A satellite on a "Repeat Ground Track Orbit" (Repeat Orbit for short) passes the same points on earth on every orbit at a known repeat period. Equatorial orbits (satellites that orbit the equator) are obviously Repeat Orbit but others can be too if they are timed just right. For example, if an orbit took 24 hours (well, 23 hours, 56 minutes and a little over 4 seconds) then a polar orbit would be a Repeat Orbit.
Satellites can be characterized by the intervals within their orbital period during which they are in line-of-sight communication with at least some ground station. Those intervals will not generally cover the whole orbital period, because some ground station may be out of order or because the satellite is flying over an area without ground stations (for example, over an ocean).
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