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by walrus01
2783 days ago
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no, because a modern satellite with ion thruster or very high efficiency (high specific impulse, low thrust measurement in newtons), once it's been ejected from the second stage of a rocket and is above 99.99% of the atmosphere, if you burned all of its stored xenon fuel immediately after launch, would end up in a 45,000 x 450 km elliptical orbit. If you want to keep a satellite in a mostly circular orbit from 350x350km to 600x600 km you do periodic very small boost maneuvers. |
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From my layman's understanding, because the effect of aerodynamic shaping breaks down at very low pressure, exhaust speed would have to be travel speed (TAS) x (total cross section / intake cross section) to keep orbit. Assessing whether that puts the concept in the realm of feasible technology or not is beyond my skills, but at least there seem to be projects working on that question. If it does work out, it would completely change the economics of LEO use.