4 ms·
> if you watch carefully, you’ll see none of them are heading west. I've seen this posted twice in different places by different people this week. It's not tru
by geuis 5y ago
> if you watch carefully, you’ll see none of them are heading west.
I've seen this posted twice in different places by different people this week. It's not true.
While most satellites are west to east (or in polar orbits), most Israeli sats orbit east to west. This is because their launch center is on the west coast of their country and it's not good for them to be launching rockets over their neighbors.
- breck 5y agoI'm not an expert but looks like you're right. > Shavit rockets are launched from Palmachim Airbase by the Israel Space Agency into highly retrograde orbits over the Mediterranean Sea to prevent debris coming down in populated areas and also to avoid flying over nations hostile to Israel to the east; this results in a lower payload-to-orbit than east-directed launches would allow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavit_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavit_2
- koheripbal 5y agoOne of many hidden costs of conflict in the middle east.
- dreamcompiler 5y agoLikewise launches from Vandenburg AFB, where prograde orbits are disallowed for safety reasons. (Most Vandenburg launches are actually more polar than retrograde however.)