Seasons mess that up unless you're burning fuel to make minor plane changes every day. Otherwise you have an equinox where your plane faces the sun (equivalent to an equatorial orbit) and a solstice where your plane is parallel to the sun (the ideal case).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-synchronous_orbit
A Sun Synchronous orbit at the Day-Night terminator solves this issue
Re:xAI joins SpaceX
by WalterBright on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @01:47PM
(#46875363)
I didn't think of that! I should have had a V8. Thanks for the info.
Huh, I didn't know that that was possible without burning fuel. Kind of wild that it only works because the Earth has an equatorial bulge and isn't an exact sphere.
Re:xAI joins SpaceX
by WalterBright on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @02:39AM
(#46867784)
True. It would a tradeoff with the fuel consumed vs doubling power output.
Polar orbit.