Keeping The ISS In Orbit

[Bhodi Li]

So to the best of my knowledge the USS uses thrusters to keep it in orbit which means it must constantly expend fuel to stay in orbit. What Im wondering about is how much of a problem atmospheric drag is when you're up that high. You would never be able to maintain orbital velocity at sea level without thrusters because the atmosphere is way too thick there and it would cause tremendous drag, (also if you tried to put an object into orbital velocity at sea level it would hit something but that's beside the point) but at the altitude of the ISS I believe the atmosphere is very thin.

The ISS is up in the thermosphere which is higher than what an airplane can fly. An airplane needs a certain thickness in the atmosphere in order to properly function and so that's why you can only fly so high in an airplane, when the atmosphere gets too thin the airplane won't fly properly, so the highest a conventional airplane can fly is the stratosphere I believe, in the mesosphere the atmosphere is too thin for the plane to fly. The thermosphere which is even higher than the mesosphere and thinner than the mesosphere, therefore, at that height, how much of a problem is atmospheric drag?

 

[Classical Motion]

When you measure it, it appears faint. But the faintness is always working against you. It's continuously accumulated against your velocity. A drag. Any at all is a drag.