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It's a demonstrator, trying to verify that the technology can work at all. The real version would be sent out to an orbit where there is always a direct path to
by WJW 3y ago
It's a demonstrator, trying to verify that the technology can work at all. The real version would be sent out to an orbit where there is always a direct path to the sun, but sending out spacecraft that far is much more expensive than just shooting them up to LEO.
- londons_explore 3y agoBut at those higher orbits, the size of the antenna necessary to get sufficient directionality gets waaaaaay bigger right?
- WJW 3y agoThere's lots of space up there though.
- dredmorbius 3y agoLaunch cost scales with orbital distance.
- ordu 3y agoYeah, and I presume this is one of the reasons they've chosen LEO. To cut costs of the experiment.