egg changed the topic of #principia to: Logs: https://esper.irclog.whitequark.org/principia | <scott_manley> anyone that doubts the wisdom of retrograde bop needs to get the hell out | https://xkcd.com/323/ | <egg> calculating the influence of lamont on Pluto is a bit silly…
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<ezsnack> also if your argpe is at high latitude the moon doesnt affect your orbit almost at all
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<Tivec> i launch at the equator, so...
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<Tivec> well kourou
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<Nazfib> Just make sure you do not launch into the same plane as the Moon. Use Principia's orbit analyzer to check the lowest altitude you'll reach over the next year or so (try it in a sim).
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<Tivec> isn't the moon plane shifting around?
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<Nazfib> A little bit, yeah. The inclination varies between 18° and 28°.
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<Tivec> Okay. I’ll light up the sim and try a few different orbits
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Reply to "Kaga: Im curious, if the earth has a sun synchronous orbit, does the moon also have one? For co..."
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<Clayel> hm, id imagine not, but looking on almighty google gives no answers
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<Clayel> low orbits around the moon are very unstable, and the tidal bulge of the moon is pretty big, so i think such an orbit would have to be out of the moon's soi to work
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Reply to "Clayel: hm, id imagine not, but looking on almighty google gives no answers low orbits around the..."
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<Kaga> Yeah, i checked google before answering since im hoping some experts here know
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I'm pretty sure you end up wanting something like L4, L5, NHRO, etc. (For reasons related to why in patched conic land, there's no synchronous orbit around the Moon)
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<Kaga> But how would i get low moon science for long term but with a solar panel only facing one side?
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<ezsnack> by giving it enough battery to survive the dark side and a big enough panel so that it rechares them fully before its dark again?
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<Kaga> Thats true but my current LV might not have the sufficient lifting power if said probe had bigger panels or more battery
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<Nazfib> Most sun-synchronous orbits (around Earth) don't have constant sunlight. The closest are dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbits, which have their ascending/descending nodes on the terminator (the line between the day and night side). However, even those experience eclipses around either the summer or the winter solstice, depending on whether the AN is at 18:00 or 6:00 local solar time. The exception are dawn-dusk SSO's at altitudes
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between 1392 and 3327 km — those are the only SSO's that don't experience eclipses at all, and therefore are in constant sunlight year-round.That said, for the Moon: a rough estimation using only the J2 effect (ignoring the influence of most of the Moon's irregular gravitational field, as well as the influence of the Earth — this is a very inaccurate calculation) says that a lunar sun-synchronous orbit might exist at 50 km and 138°
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inclination. Of course, at such a high inclination, the orbit will still pass through the Moon's shadow on every orbit. A constant sunlight low lunar orbit does not exist.
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<Kaga> Ah bollocks, guess i dont have a choice
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Reply to "Nazfib: Most sun-synchronous orbits (around Earth) don't have constant sunlight. The closest are ..."
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<Clayel> why do those specific SSO's not experience eclipses?
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<Nazfib> Most sun-synchronous orbits (around Earth) don't have constant sunlight. The closest are dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbits, which have their ascending/descending nodes on the terminator (the line between the day and night side). However, even those experience eclipses around either the summer or the winter solstice, depending on whether the AN is at 18:00 or 6:00 local solar time. The exception are dawn-dusk SSO's at altitudes
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between 1392 and 3327 km — those are the only SSO's that don't experience eclipses at all, and therefore are in constant sunlight year-round.That said, for the Moon: a rough estimation using only the J2 effect (ignoring the influence of most of the Moon's irregular gravitational field, as well as the influence of the Earth — this is a very inaccurate calculation) says that a lunar sun-synchronous orbit might exist at 50 km and 138°
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inclination. Of course, at such a high inclination, the orbit will still pass through the Moon's shadow on every orbit. A constant sunlight low lunar orbit does not exist.
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<Nazfib> The required inclination for a sun-synchronous orbit depends on the orbital altitude, with higher orbits requiring a larger (i.e. more retrograde) inclination. Only in that range are the inclination and altitude such, that the whole orbit is outside the Earth's shadow even during the solstice.I don't have any good pictures to help you visualise, but if you want the full details: