How do we describe an orbit?

Any orbit around the Sun can be uniquely defined with six numbers. There are many equivalent ways to choose them, but for intuitive interpretation we use the classical orbital elements.^↗ The first two describe the shape of the orbit. The next three describe how the orbital plane is oriented in space. The last describes where on the orbit the captor happens to be at a given instant. Use the visualization below to build an intuition for what each parameter does.

Each of these six numbers can be “allocated” to an actor that wants to place captors, or other infrastructure, in orbit around the Sun. How that allocation is structured carries significant implications.