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points by adrian_b 2 days ago | 0 comments
The number of slots in the sun synchronous orbits is limited. More slots can be accommodated if the satellites can maneuver to avoid collisions.

Moreover, a datacenter in a sun synchronous orbit must be able to maneuver anyway, otherwise without adjusting the orbit it will enter in the shadow of the Earth after a month or two, due to the revolution of the Earth around the Sun.

If the datacenter must make periodic adjustments of the orbit, it will need to carry a lot of fuel, especially because a datacenter will be much heavier than a typical satellite, so much more fuel will be needed for orbit changes.

Thus it is not certain that a sun synchronous orbit is the best choice. It is possible that the extra fuel required for it may make this choice worse than using another orbit where the datacenter will not have power for half of the time.

[–] mike_hearn 2 days ago
That's an interesting choice. All the discussion I saw before assumed sun-synchronous, you're the first to suggest otherwise.

Do you know what the capacity of this orbit is?

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