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what orbit maxes sunlight w/ ship that faces same way, i.e., due to rotating axis pointing at sun
question: what orbit maxes sunlight w/ ship that faces same way, i.e.,
due to rotating axis pointing at sun - - - am trying to have large glassed area always facing sun while in LEO, to avoid any even small changes in sunlight due to not being sun-facing except for when in earth's shadow. 1 how do current craft keep panels to sun, yet keep antennas pointing to earth? do they bother to every minute adjust panels or just pick a good layout and then shut off motors? 2 could circular panels spun up and gyro-locked to sun-direction (which I suppose shifts 1/365 of 380 degrees each day?) max sunlight, maybe carrying power to station via a special de-coupled wire (rather than beaming power losses?) 3 any good using clouds of white dust (or "mirror" shiny dust) about 100 meters away in higher orbit (to avoid dust near craft) to bounce back light when panels are not facing right way during part of orbit, 4 obviously, if orbiting around equator every orbit craft facing sun so does "flips" as seen from earth, or not? 5 polar orbits, is there one (certain altitude) that always is head-on to sun. sorry, my mind can't visualize this for some reason sorry for the basic questions, hope some might lead to good thoughts |
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what orbit maxes sunlight w/ ship that faces same way, i.e., due to rotating axis pointing at sun
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what orbit maxes sunlight w/ ship that faces same way, i.e., due to rotating axis pointing at sun
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oups.com... question: what orbit maxes sunlight w/ ship that faces same way, i.e., due to rotating axis pointing at sun - - - am trying to have large glassed area always facing sun while in LEO, to avoid any even small changes in sunlight due to not being sun-facing except for when in earth's shadow. One thing to bear in mind when discussing a rotating object orbiting the sun with its spin axis pointing at the sun is that something will have to turn the spin axis to track the sun (by about 1 degree a day, at our distance). So you'd better talk in terms of two connected counter-rotating objects, so that the angular momentums cancel each other out. This is the solution that Gerard O'Neill adopted for his Island 3 habitats, which had the same requirement. -- Regards, Mike Combs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Member of the National Non-sequitur Society. We may not make much sense, but we do like pizza. |
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