Hitchhiker Server Sky Test
Testing the first server sky thinsat arrays may be challenging - they don't belong in a common orbit, they won't last long below 1000 km altitude due to ram drag. It would be nice to deploy the first tests at M288, but that will require a custom launch.
If we dispensed thinsats from a GTO transfer orbit with a 622 km perigee ( 7000 km radius ), MORE LATER
But there's a trick.
Thinsats can be tested in a highly elliptical orbit above LEO and below GEO. Deploying them as hitchhikers from a GTO bound upper stage would work - except that the perigee of the GTO orbit is too low. Raise it, just enough to make 92 5 gram thinsats (V = 3 array) last a month or two - lets assume that is 1322 km altitude perigee (7700 km radius). Start with a GTO transfer orbit with a perigee of 622 km altitude (7000 km radius), with an apogee velocity of 1640.7 m/s. The test orbit has an apogee velocity of 1708.7 m/s, for a delta V of 68 meters per second, an impulse of 31 Newton-seconds.
That is similar to one Estes E9-4 model rocket engine (30 N-s, 57 grams, 2.8 seconds). Of course, we would want a custom engine with a much slower burn, lighter casing, etc.
Perigee velocity is 5.53 km/s. Let's assume that we are in full area ram drag for 80% of the orbit perigees, and edge-on for 20% of the orbit perigees, and that drag occurs within 200 km of perigee; a 42 degree arc, 0.73 radians, 5600 kilometers at an apogee velocity of 9357 m/s, 600 seconds.
Air drag - Larson and Wertz tells us that mean density at 1250 km is 1.11e-15 kg/m3, and 5.21e-16 kg/m3 at 1500 km. Let's assume 1e-15 kg/m3 at 1322 km altitude, edge on for 20% of the orbits, and ram drag for 80% of the orbits. The average drag through perigee is $ 0.8 A \rho V3 , or 0.8 * 0.025 * 1e-15 * 93573 or 1.64e-5 N, decellerating the 5 gram thinsat by 3.3e-3 m/s2, or 2 m/s per orbit.
Circular orbit velocity at that altitude is 7195 m/s, 2162 m/s less than GTO, so we would get about 1000 experimental orbits before the altitude starts decaying fast.