= Launching Thinsats =

Thinsats are deployed in an approximately equatorial orbit, so that the ground antennas can have a fixed elevation above the horizon.  An inclined m288 orbit would change elevation up and down 5 times per day.

|| orbit || surface || lat45 || max    ||radius||radius|| altitude || grav ||sidereal||sidereal||<-2>Kourou, 5 ||<-2> KSC, 29||<-2>Baikonur, 46||
|| name  || period  ||  ping ||latitude||      ||      ||          ||      || period ||velocity||launch||apogee||launch||apogee||launch||apogee||
||       ||  min    ||   ms  || degrees||  km  ||earths||  km      ||m/s^2^||   sec  ||   m/s  ||  m/s ||  m/s ||  m/s ||  m/s ||  m/s ||  m/s ||
||  LEO  ||  97     ||   --  ||  17.29 ||  6678|| 1.05 ||      300 || 8.94 ||  5431  ||  7726  || 7532 ||  672 || 7589 || 3825 || 7673 || 5968 ||
|| m288  || 288     ||   63  ||  60.17 || 12789|| 2.01 ||     6411 || 2.44 || 14393  || 5583   || 8669 || 1102 || 8725 || 2502 || 8809 || 3705 ||
|| m360  || 360     ||   73  ||  63.87 || 14441|| 2.26 ||     8063 || 1.91 || 17271  || 5254   || 8848 || 1196 || 8904 || 2354 || 9051 || 4027 ||
|| m480  || 480     ||   87  ||  67.70 || 16756|| 2.63 ||    10378 || 1.42 || 21585  || 4877   || 9051 || 1295 || 9108 || 2206 || 9192 || 3096 ||
|| m720  || 720     ||  110  ||  71.74 || 20295|| 3.18 ||    13917 || 0.97 || 28774  || 4432   || 9289 || 1393 || 9345 || 2055 || 9429 || 2758 ||
||  GEO  || fixed   ||  253  ||  81.33 || 42164|| 6.61 ||    35786 || 0.22 || 86164  || 3075   || 9956 || 1505 ||10013 || 1694 ||10096 || 1940 ||

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'''This is the old version 1 design, silicon and glass.  Version 5 uses an aluminum substrate'''

|| {{ attachment:serverbus.png }} || Thinsats peeled off the top of a cylinder of thinsats.  The thickness is greatly exaggerated.  There will actually be thousands of thinsats in a stack this tall, at about the same spacing as sheets of paper in a ream of paper. <<BR>><<BR>> Mechanically, the stack resembles a solid cylinder of silicon with three adjoining cylinders of glass.  The heights of glass and silicon layers must be well matched, and the thermal expansion differences between silicon and glass accommodated, to prevent mechanical strain from vibration during launch, and thermal strain when the cylinders cool ||

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