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tocomment
on Oct 13, 2012
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Satellite burns up following SpaceX rocket glitch
I never understood why this company couldn't make do with the orbit spacex left it in?
mikeash
on Oct 13, 2012
[–]
No, orbit isn't orbit. Among many other considerations, the key problem here was that the initial orbit was low enough for atmospheric drag to be a factor, thus why it fell back to Earth after just a few days.
mturmon
on Oct 13, 2012
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[–]
And specifically, being underpowered, the orbit was probably highly elliptical.
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