[loandbehold]

> It still needs power, you’re most likely going to do it with solar if you’re on earth orbit but that isn’t free and you will have periods of no sunlight so a significant amount of batteries will be needed.

SpaceX will be putting them in sun-synchronous orbit, meaning always sunlight.

[lovich]

How would they handle eclipses?

[g023]

I wonder if "battelites" might be profitable. Like an pay-per-usage energy grid in space with battery backup that can beam power around to other satellites that might not have easy access to power, or have their power grids temporarily obstructed.

[loandbehold]

the only "eclipse" in sun-synchronous orbit is when moon is between the satellite and the sun, which is very rare and lasts less than a minute.

[lovich]

Yes, but it’s a guaranteed event, so it needs to be accounted for if you’re serious about engineering.

The accounting could just be, we accept that downtime, it’s all calculated in advance and we’ll prepare the system for it, but it still needs to be considered.