jurc11

jurc11 t1_ir7igki wrote

One thing I don't see mentioned yet is SpaceX are using precession to separate their launches into separate orbits. They launch 60 sats (numbers slightly simplified) to around 260 km (or whatever it is now), start raising the altitude of 20 of them, whilst keeping the other 40 at insertion altitude. Doing this for a month separates the two groups by a couple of degrees, then they repeat it with the next 20. This way they end up with 3 groups in separated orbits without having to actively do the separation with rocket fuel (and a regular shell has 72 such separate planes/orbits).

The reason this works is that the effect of nodal precession depends on altitude. Sats at different altitudes drift slower/faster.

Precession alone is enough to ensure sats won't visit the same "points" as you have imagined, unless perfectly synced (and that's then related to SSO orbits, as I've mentioned in another comment).

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jurc11 t1_ir7gtdb wrote

>I would assume if the satellites orbit time is divisible by earths rotation time, it syncs up.

Right, that's how you get to SSO - sun-synchronous orbits. In terms of Starlink, that's Group 3 at 97.6° inclination. If the orbit is inclined just right for its altitude, it will be sun-synchronous and will appear over the same area at the same time every day. It will precess just right to keep up with the planet below. This is used by imaging sats to have consistent shadows and will be used by Starlink Group 3 to ensure additional peak time coverage.

Here's a plot of altitude vs. inclination, you can see Group 3 at 560km should be inclined to 97.6° to be SSO.

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