Figure: The Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites

Caption: "A 3D view of Earth surrounded by Global Positioning System (GPS) (i.e., Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) satellites) shown as color-coded dots and orbital paths, with colors indicating the country operating each satellite." (Slightly edited.)

See the NASA video version NASA: Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Fleet Released Thursday, March 19, 2026, ID:5627 | 0:20: Authoritative Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) satellites, color-coded by operating country: United States (cyan), European Union (blue), China (red), Russia (yellow), India (green), and Japan (white). Good for the classroom.

Further explication:

1. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is how we know where we are in our time.

2. Actually, this is NOT a good illustration of the low Earth orbit since the GPS artificial satellites are at orbital radius ∼ 26600 km (altitude ∼ 20200 km) (see GPS Space Segment), and so are far above low Earth orbit.

   So they don't rise and set all that frequently. Their orbital periods are about half a sidereal day = 86164.1 s. The SI day = 86400 s (exact by definition).

4. From Kepler's 3rd law, we obtain the fiducial-value orbital period formula for a test particle (i.e., an astro-body of negligible mass)

     p_earth_orbit = 2π/(GM) = (84.4902 ... minutes)*(M/M_⊕)*(R/R_eq_⊕)**(3/2)
                             = (1.40817 ... hours)*(M/M_⊕)*(R/R_eq_⊕)**(3/2)
                             = (0.0586737 ... days)*(M/M_⊕)*(R/R_eq_⊕)**(3/2)  ,

   where M is the mass of the orbited astro-body (assumed to have infinite mass relative to the test particle mass), R is mean orbital radius (AKA semi-major axis of the orbit, gravitational constant G = 6.67408(31)*10**(-11) (MKS units), Earth mass M_⊕ = 5.9722(6)*10**24 kg, and Earth equatorial radius R_eq_⊕ 6378.1370 km. So at orbital radius ∼ 26600 km ≅ 4 R_eq_⊕, we expect an orbital period ∼ 8*0.06 ≅ 0.5 days which agrees with what we said above.

5. From the NASA video, you can see that the GPS artificial satellites mostly orbit eastward (i.e., counterclockwise as seen the north celestial pole direction), and so probably mostly rise west and set east. Since their orbital periods are about half a day, it is clear why they outrace the eastward rotation of the Earth or, from the Earth's perspective, the daily westward rotation of the celestial sphere.