The satellite has to be either inside or outside the Van Allen radiation belts. LEOs are limited to 1200 km (usually 800 km) so you need dozens of them to provide decent coverage. Once the satellite is above the radiation belts, you get almost 50% coverage anyway.
73,
John KD6OZH
----- Original Message ----- From: sco@sco-inc.com To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 14:41 UTC Subject: [amsat-bb] Two Sats
If two sats like Hamsat (or Echo) were in orbit at the same time and could see each other ...
Could User#1 uplink to Sat-A and then Sat-A would link to Sat-B (probably on one of the higher microwave bands) then Sat-B would downlink to User#2 and User#2 would uplink to Sat-B and be relayed to Sat-A and down to User#1 ??
If this could be done there would be a much larger footprint and launch costs would be far less expensive, correct?
Les W4SCO
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