How Does Weight Loss Affect the Orbital Period of a Satellite?

[aalmighty]

I weigh 200 pounds today on earth, now I go Into an Isolated System (Say, an artificial Satellite) for six months, I eat healthy foods, drink a lot of water and regularly exercize (due to lack of anything else to do :D), so I'll lose weight, and hence mass.

1) Will there be any change in the time period of the satellite?

2) If not, which means the satellite has the same mass as when it was launched, where is the mass that I lost by exercizing?

 

[moose]

Well, if your waste isn't thrown out of the space station, but kept on, the overall mass of the station will never change as long as you stay on...

 

[Tide]

Over 100 days your body will have radiated away the equivalent of roughly 10 mcg of mass. :)

 

[rbj]

Well, if your waste isn't thrown out of the space station, but kept on, the overall mass of the station will never change as long as you stay on...

and even if you did toss the waste (or the lost body weight), the mass of the satellite has (virtually) nothing to do with the orbital period. it's the mass of the planet the satellite is going around (as well as the radius of orbit, assuming a circular orbit) that controls the period.