Author Topic: Amateur satellites in Tundra/Molniya orbits.  (Read 14652 times)

Offline Satanic Mechanic

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Amateur satellites in Tundra/Molniya orbits.
« on: March 19, 2015, 10:59:46 AM »
I am still debating whether this topic should be here or in orbital mechanics.

Lately the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT for short) has been piggybacking flights to launch their new Fox Class satellites into LEO.  These very small cube sats are a very cool design, but in my opinion they are limited to LEO.  I do not see amateur radio satellites in GEO since communications companies and countries have grabbed up all the spots.  Why not take a page out of history and use the Molniya orbits to cover a large portion of North America for a long period of time?

I know one of the radio satellite services use these types of orbits, renamed "Tundra orbits", to cover the U.S. with only three satellites.  I have looked at data of past Soviet satellites in that orbit and the lives have not been that long.  Over the last three weeks I have been hitting Bob's site for equations on transferring from LEO to a different orbit, but what I would like to know is how stable is the Molniya orbit over a long duration.  Does anyone recommend a software simulator?

Thanks,

SM