Planet Launches Satellite Constellation to Image the Whole Planet Daily

Re:Planet Launches Satellite Constellation to Image the Whol... by titzer on Wednesday February 15, 2017 @11:57AM (#13653405)

I'm looking at this http://scilogs.spektrum.de/kosmo/gallery/4/liftime_satellite....

I couldn't find a reference for what the orbital height for these satellites are, but I am guessing they are high enough to last decades.

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Re:Planet Launches Satellite Constellation to Image the Whol... by chimere on Wednesday February 15, 2017 @12:43PM (#13653791)

This launch was to 500km, and the Doves are around 150kg/m^2 (4.5kg / 0.03m^2). This puts their lifetime at around 5 years according to that linked plot.

For reference, Planet's earlier launches were to the ISS (400km) and lasted less than a year, which your plot agrees with.

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Re:Planet Launches Satellite Constellation to Image the Whol... by panzagl on Wednesday February 15, 2017 @12:34PM (#13653707)

The previous launch for their system has satellites with a perigee of 494 km, so not high at all.

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