<P> A launch vehicle is a rocket that places a satellite into orbit . Usually, it lifts off from a launch pad on land . Some are launched at sea from a submarine or a mobile maritime platform, or aboard a plane (see air launch to orbit). </P> <P> Satellites are usually semi-independent computer - controlled systems . Satellite subsystems attend many tasks, such as power generation, thermal control, telemetry, attitude control and orbit control . </P> <P> "Newton's cannonball", presented as a "thought experiment" in A Treatise of the System of the World, by Isaac Newton was the first published mathematical study of the possibility of an artificial satellite . </P> <P> The first fictional depiction of a satellite being launched into orbit was a short story by Edward Everett Hale, The Brick Moon . The idea surfaced again in Jules Verne's The Begum's Fortune (1879). </P>

Who came up with the idea of satellites