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> The real problem isn't that space is getting full of our junk, but that our junk is in a very narrow band of orbits that we use for very specific missions: Su

• sandworm101 6y ago
  A sun-synchronous orbit is a polar orbit where the satellite passes over each part of the earth at the same time every day. That is very useful if you want to photograph things at regular intervals using cameras (stable light, no nighttime) or if your satellite uses solar panels as these orbits can be such that the satellite never falls into the earth's shadow.
  • bagels 6y ago
    They still go in to shadow once per orbit typically.
    • twic 6y ago
      A dawn-to-dusk sun-synchronous orbit completes most of its orbits in full view of the sun: > This means that, for most of the year, PROBA2 will have a full-time view of the sun, and will not experience eclipses of the sun behind the earth. However, because the orbit does not follow the terminator exactly, PROBA2 will experience brief periods of several weeks when eclipses of the sun by the earth do occur, specifically around December each year. During approximately 80 days (from November until January), visible eclipses occur every orbit with a duration ranging from a few minutes in November up to a maximum of 18 minutes and back to 0. [1] https://proba2.sidc.be/about/launch https://proba2.sidc.be/about/launch
      • bagels 6y ago
        Many of the sun synchronous sats are earth imaging sats and are placed to take pictures at the same time of day when there are short shadows. Thanks for sharing this use use case too though, pretty neat.