Earth tide Earth tide Earth tide (also known as solid Earth tide, crustal tide, body tide, bodily tide or land tide) is the displacement of the solid earth's surface caused by the gravity of the Moon and Sun. Its main component has meter-level amplitude at periods of about 12 hours and longer. The largest body tide constituents are semi-diurnal, but there are also significant diurnal, semi-annual, and fortnightly contributions. Though the gravitational forcing causing earth tides and ocean tides is the same, the responses are quite different. The larger of the periodic gravitational forces is from the Moon but that of the
Orbital station-keeping caused by the oblateness of the Earth is a desirable feature that is part of the mission design but the inclination change caused by the gravitational forces of Sun/Moon is undesirable. For geostationary spacecraft the inclination change caused by the gravitational forces of the Sun & Moon must be counteracted by a rather large expense of fuel, as the inclination should be kept sufficiently small for the spacecraft to be tracked by a non-steerable antenna. For spacecraft in low orbits the effects of atmospheric drag must often be compensated for. For some missions this is needed simply to avoid re-entry;