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A comment on Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into Orbit. Parent comment

Re:Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into ... by aerophilic on Thursday January 05, 2023 @02:07PM (#34264835)
Love this concept… one issue however if I remember correctly is that it is pretty costly (fuel wise) to keep anything in lunar orbit. The issue is that the moon is very “lumpy” causing you to have to constantly correct your orbit. However maybe this is a non-issue if you are in a high enough orbit… but then you are trading how much power you can get to the surface.
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Re:Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into ... by gpm on Thursday January 05, 2023 @02:23PM (#34265101)
There are a few "frozen orbits" that are stable: https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/3...
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Re:Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into ... by moffkalast on Thursday January 05, 2023 @04:10PM (#34266638)
Yeah and the LRO has been in one of them for 13 years now. It does restrict you quite a bit though.

For Luna it doesn't make as much sense as it would for say Mars, since there's no atmosphere to reduce efficiency and no shortage of ground real estate. You can save a bit of propellant to not bring the panel assembly down, but you'll need fuel for orbital stationkeeping instead anyway.

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Re:Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into ... by dylan604 on Friday January 06, 2023 @01:40AM (#34271712)
With the proposed "cheapness" of Starship $/kg, wouldn't sending fuel to refill the station keeping abilities be feasible?
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