Synonyms

orbiter

American

[awr-bi-ter] / ˈɔr bɪ tər /

noun

U.S. Aerospace.

Also called space shuttle orbiter. the crew- and payload-carrying component of the space shuttle.
a space probe designed to orbit a planetary body or moon.

orbiter British

/ ˈɔːbɪtə /

noun

a spacecraft or satellite designed to orbit a planet or other body without landing on it Compare lander

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of orbiter

An Americanism dating back to 1950–55; orbit + -er ¹

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

orbiter

The orbiter circles the Moon from pole to pole once every two hours as the Moon slowly rotates beneath it.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 20, 2026

India plans to send astronauts into space next year, an orbiter to Venus by 2028 and build its own space station by 2035.

From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026

When it debuts, the gallery will be the only place in the world with a complete shuttle stack, including orbiter, solid rocket boosters and an external tank.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026

Two senators earmarked $85 million for the move to Houston—but safely shipping an 86-ton shuttle orbiter cross-country could prove a herculean feat.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026

For Viking 1, the original landing site seemed, after we examined orbiter photographs and late-breaking Earth-based radar data, unacceptably risky.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023