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> It still needs power, you’re most likely going to do it with solar if you’re on earth orbit but that isn’t free and you will have periods of no sunlight so a
by loandbehold 3mo ago
> It still needs power, you’re most likely going to do it with solar if you’re on earth orbit but that isn’t free and you will have periods of no sunlight so a significant amount of batteries will be needed.
SpaceX will be putting them in sun-synchronous orbit, meaning always sunlight.
- lovich 3mo agoHow would they handle eclipses?
- loandbehold 3mo agothe only "eclipse" in sun-synchronous orbit is when moon is between the satellite and the sun, which is very rare and lasts less than a minute.
- lovich 3mo agoYes, but it’s a guaranteed event, so it needs to be accounted for if you’re serious about engineering. The accounting could just be, we accept that downtime, it’s all calculated in advance and we’ll prepare the system for it, but it still needs to be considered.
- g023 3mo agoI wonder if "battelites" might be profitable. Like an pay-per-usage energy grid in space with battery backup that can beam power around to other satellites that might not have easy access to power, or have their power grids temporarily obstructed.