3 ms·

Yeah, the linear scale graph from wikipedia does make GEO seem very large. I'm guessing wildly here but most things in GEO should be orbiting in the same(ish) s

• bsmith89 9y ago
  Anything in geostationary orbit must orbit at exactly the same speed (at least on average) to stay perfectly aligned with a spot on the equator. When that _doesn't _ hold, collisions are exceedingly likely, since it's a 1-d path with more than 400 satellites [1]. It sounds like positional tolerances are about 1/10th of a degree in either direction, which leads to the back-of-the-envelope estimate of a 1800 satellite capacity at geostationary [2]. My mind is blown that a circle with a circumference of 2.65e5 km can only hold 1800 objects, safely, but that's what 1-dimensionality dictates. That number could be increased linearly with narrower positional tolerances. But there is also, presumably, the potential for a lot more room in geosynchronous orbit, since satellite paths can spread into another dimension. Does anyone know if this actually works? [1]: http://www.satsig.net/sslist.htm http://www.satsig.net/sslist.htm [2]: http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1294&context=btlj http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...