At 11:13 PM 7/4/2009, Jeff Davis wrote:
What about other orbits that may not be as desirable as HEO but that offer better coverage than low-earth?
I recall reading something from G0RMF about adapting a CubeSat to include some sort of a propulsion system to get to a mid-Earth orbit:
This idea does have merit. As you've implied, we'd probably never get a ride directly to such an orbit, so some means of (relatively) foolproof and (relatively) inexpensive means of propulsion would need to be utilised.
Someone would also need to do the delta-V calculations, to see what sort of orbit would be feasible for such a small satellite to achieve. There's also the possible issue of the satellite spending most of its life in the Van Allen belts, unless we can get the altitude "just right".
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