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>offering an unprecedented opportunity for users to select one of 16 possible orbits, each of which can be completed in approximately 90 minutes. Does the sate

>offering an unprecedented opportunity for users to select one of 16 possible orbits, each of which can be completed in approximately 90 minutes. Does the satellite actually change orbits for every user? That seems super expensive, propellant-wise. Or just 16 different tracks from the earth's precession? Also, I'm not sure if this is actually the first satellite that let regular people take their own satellite pictures -I believe Ardusat aka Nanosatisfi aka Spire previously let people rent the cameras on their cubesats Edit: actually I'm not sure if Ardusat ever actually let users use the camera feature

renjimen 4y ago
Most satellite imagery companies (Planet, Maxar, Satellogic etc.) allow users to pay for "tasked" imagery over an area within a given time window. This article doesn't explain why this Sony effort is the first of its kind in that regard.
outworlder 4y ago
> That seems super expensive, propellant-wise. It would be ludicrously expensive. If "different orbits" means different orbital inclinations, you would be better off launching another satellite for each one. It's that expensive (there's at least one case of a satellite operator sending the satellite to the Moon and back, as it was cheaper). If it meant different orbits as different altitudes, that would still be expensive if we wanted to allow anyone to request a different one and the 90 minutes figure would change. By exclusion, they probably mean 16 tracks indeed.