3 ms·

You can't repair satellites beyond LEO very easily though, so if your spares fail in spaces, that's it. If your spare gets damaged in storage on earth, you sen

• Rebelgecko 9y ago
  Satellites don't break significantly faster in orbit than in storage. Storage can easily cost $5 million a year, but on top of cost savings there's other benefits to sending your payload up early (assuming you've budgeted for a bit more battery wear, fuel consumption, etc.) The most dangerous time for a satellite is by far the first couple months. This is when most design and QC failures become apparent. If you launch before you need your satellite, you can do your on-orbit checkouts and not be in a rush to deal with any anomalies. When your preexisting operational satellite dies, you can have one ready to go immediately instead of needing to beg borrow or bribe your way to a better position in a launch provider's manifest.