Ack!! I spoke too soon. Bob Mark II disappeared sometime between 9:00 and 9:15. About a 9-hour run, though. I wonder if it’s even possible to attain a perfectly stable orbit?
I seriously doubt it. Eventually, floating point error will kill you.
Very cool effect! Thanks for the tip.
I finally managed to get one in a low-earth orbit. Let’s see how long it lasts.
Crahsed.
In my experience, yes. I had 7+ satellites in orbit around Earth going quite happily along (some with more elliptical orbits, others with rather circular ones) and then I did the mouse-corner-possessed thing and about a minute later they had all crashed into Earth. It’s a very slight pull, but if you get pulled 50 times ever so slightly you get pulled enough.
Got one with a period of less than 1.90 seconds, too. Probably only about a second, maybe 1.5, by the time it stabilized.
As of 12:15, I have two in orbit. One is a nearly circular near-earth orboit witha period of about .7 seconds, and the other is a highly-elliptical orbit with a period of 31.7 seconds. I expect the latter to crash into the moon eventually.
As I was writing this the both disappeared.
Of course, it’s not at all to scale. The moon should be about 55 times farther away from the earth than it is.
Damn! I have a pair going right now in opposite directions and just realized I’ll lose them when my firewall expires this afternoon, if they’re still going. I’ll have to try this from home instead.
How many times can you get one to orbit the moon only? I’m up to three.
I got one to do about ten highly-eliptical orbits. None of the others I’ve tried have come close to that.
My low earth orbit fellow from last night is still going strong. 15+ hours and counting…
Wow, Ringo! What’s the orbital period? And is it a circular orbit?
I went to look and saw the crash - 15 hours and 45 minutes. It was a slightly elliptical orbit with a close earth pass, making about 6 cycles per one moon orbit.
Wow, I left my computer on and totally forgot I had this satellite thing open… About 18 hours now I think
By the way, its pretty much circular but slightly elliptical. During the bottom part of the orbit, its 1/2 way between earth and the moon, and during the top part of the orbit its closer to the earth very slightly
I had one in low earth orbit go all night!
I had two going for 9 hours. One just crashed, but the other is going strong?
Oops, scratch the “?”
I’ve had one going since 7:30 last night.
whoah…whoah…how do you guys get satellites that last so long? How are you firing them off?