' Or is it merely supposed to orbit the ship?'
Actually, that's not a bad idea. Often aircraft returning to the ship are hurting for gas and discover (again) that 'Outhouse' is the largest lie in naval aviation. By the time you close to the deck you start running short of gas; all it takes is some form of deck incident that blacks the deck and you're in trouble. Having a V22 with a bit of gas in the overhead as a strike package recovers 'just in case' is pretty sensible if the alternative is throwing your very expensive F35 into the drink for the want of a 1000kg or so of fuel....plus it could act as a plane guard at the same time.
I've spent, literally, hours in the Port/Starboard wait while the fish-heads and chock-heads sort their lives out - lucky we're rarely hurting for gas in a CH47. Though on more than one occasion folks have joined the wait, landed on for gas and been sent back to the wait to permit the planned deck cycle to take place. If you've never operated from a deck it's hard to appreciate the complexity....it's assuredly not a 'floating airfield'.