Re:The revolutionary ion engine that took spacecraft to Ceres
by TeMPOraL on Monday March 09, 2015 @03:43PM
(#9173448)
I'm pretty sure it was meant to be parsed like this:
> [Real applications like] For example, (keeping geostationary satellites in their correct orbit), (to counteract the aerodynamic drag from the very tenuous atmosphere 200km above the Earth).
Of course there isn't any significant drag at GEO, but you still need to use engines to do station keeping, thanks to things like Earth's shape, other planets and solar winds messing up with your orbit in tiny ways that tend to accumulate. You can't keep a stable orbit forever without correction burns the way you can in Kerbal Space Program (because it doesn't do full n-body simulation).
> [Real applications like] For example, (keeping geostationary satellites in their correct orbit), (to counteract the aerodynamic drag from the very tenuous atmosphere 200km above the Earth).
Of course there isn't any significant drag at GEO, but you still need to use engines to do station keeping, thanks to things like Earth's shape, other planets and solar winds messing up with your orbit in tiny ways that tend to accumulate. You can't keep a stable orbit forever without correction burns the way you can in Kerbal Space Program (because it doesn't do full n-body simulation).
More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_station-keeping.