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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • There is no orbit altitude that requires more energy to maintain than a lower altitude.

    Zone 1 requires more reboosting that 2, which requires more than 3, which requires more than 4. I dont know the exact relationship, (someone else might know), but we can consider it linear for simplification. The further away from earth, there will be less atmospheric drag, which means a longer stable orbit.

    The travel distance doesn’t really change anything, it doesn’t affect the orbit stability.

    Think of it like this spring. Your satellite can start at any point, and with no additional energy, Itll follow the path all the way down to the middle (earth). Start low, and itll reach ground quickly, start high, and itll take a lot longer. There is no energy required to stay on the spiral path. Once the sat is low enough, you may want to reboost, which is when you need to use energy to jump up to a higher point on the spiral, at which the path continues.



  • All orbits require very minimal maintenance, the closer to earth, the more maintenance required . Far enough out, and its basically maintence free, except for avoiding other debris.

    The problem with an explosive self destruct is that not all debris will go down into lower orbits, some with go higher and therefore take even longer to deorbit. Its also a lot easier to track one dead satellite instead of thousands of minute particles.

    And ideal “self-destruct button” would actually be a thruster firing in the direction of travel, which would slow it down and drag it into the earth, or if facing the other way, boost it up to a “graveyard” orbit. Both these exist on many satellites already.