Monday, 28 December 2009

Stable polar solar orbit with the Earth continuously observable

As ganbustein says, this is not too difficult to imagine. The simplest case (approximating with circular orbits and only the Sun, Earth and Satellite) would have the satellite orbit orthogonally to the Earth with a 1 year orbit. The Satellite will pass the Earth orbit plane in two places, call these "down crossing" and "up crossing" points.



To minimize Earth - Satellite iterations, keep them 90 degrees apart. Have the Satellite over the north solar pole when the Earth is at the "down crossing" point. Then when the satellite gets to the "down crossing point" the Earth will be furthest from the Satellite plane. When the earth is at the "up crossing point" the satellite will under the Suns south pole. And so on.



This would not be completely stable when we include Jupiter and the mutual interactions, but I think they should be small, allowing this to work generally. If someone "does the math" and proves me wrong, I will accept that.

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