Re: Favored decay latitude?

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Mark Hanning-Lee <markhl@prodigy.net> said:

>I've noticed that many reentry predictions on the list seem to predict
>decay soon after an equator crossing.

Besides the height of the atmoshere above the equator there's another
obvious reason why most decays occur at lower latitudes.

More satellites are at lower inclinations due to the higher performance
from launching due east.

Every satellite has to pass over the equator twice on each orbit.  But the
higher the inclination the lower the total number of satellites.  Even if
the Earth was perfectly circular and the atmosphere was even, few decays
would occur over the polar regions simply because less satellites are in
polar orbits.



Philip Chien, KC4YER
Earth News
world (in)famous writer, science fiction fan, ham radio operator,
all-around nice guy, etc.

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