Toroidal Orbits

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Apogee Skew

Here is an array of 125 server-sats in a 3 dimensional equal-spacing grid, looking inwards towards the ground as the array completes a 4 hour orbit. The rows of five server-sats follow each other in their orbits, separated very slightly in time. You can see the rows apparently rotating away and backwards, or towards and forwards, completing a rotation around the central orbit (yellow) once per orbit. Watch the white circles make one loop, from back to top to front to bottom and back again.

The server-sats are actually smaller compared to their spacing, and slightly offset so they do not obscure each other's path to the ground, or shade each other from the sun. They also have offsets to reduce grating lobes in the RF pattern. But the even spacing is prettier...

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