Asri-unix.747
net.space
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:C70:sri-unix!csin!cjh@CCA-UNIX
Wed Feb 10 08:27:56 1982
shadows on power satellites. . .
   It looks like we have a lot of people who weren't here the last time this
went around. . . .
   The Earth's shadow for any low orbit is effectively a cylinder with
r .= 4000 miles (farther out you have to imagine a cone with this as base);
this means that a powersat in GEO is in shadow for (at a
rough average) 4/(26.2 * pi) or around 1/20 of its orbit. There are all sorts
of variations in this (because it should travel in equatorial plane rather
than ecliptic, it might not be shadowed at all during the solstices).