Hi Sebastian, > since all Iridiums have about the same inclination and orbit type, > there is no relative drift between the orbital planes and because > of the very near polar orbit no variation of RA of ascend. node at > all. Not quite. The spares are at a lower altitude. This leads to a slightly different nodal precession rate. This differential precession is pretty low (less than 1 degree per day) for satellites with high inclinations, so it can take quite a while depending on the target plane. Best, Rob ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 12 2002 - 18:48:16 EST