Six astronauts from different nations orbit Earth in a space station. Over a 24-hour span, 16 orbits are completed. Each chapter is devoted to an individual circumference of the globe, as the space station’s personnel collect meteorological data, conduct experiments, test the body, and above all, observe. 
 
They’re removed from Earth, but events and memories draw them back to terra firma – the death of family, a typhoon forming to wreak devastation, the messages from loved ones – solo performances in life’s orchestra. 
 
There is little jeopardy and no cataclysmic scenarios, just rich descriptions of transit and the phenomena occurring within the space module and the planet below them. Orbital is a poised novel asking what it is to be human.