Talk:Astérix (satellite)

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Orbital decay

While a citation would be welcome, the estimate of several centuries is not wrong. the French article lists 54cm length and 55cm diameter, which makes the cross-section below 0.25m^2. At 40kg, that's 0.00625m^2/kg surface to mass ratio. Orbital decay time vs altitude graph (source) gives an order of 10,000 days (27 years) for orbit of ~527km. 527km is the perigee, where the satellite spends least time - and with apogee of almost 1700km (altitude 1000km is ~3000 years decay time), the estimate of "a few hundred years" may be conservative.

Of course this counts as "original research" so can't be used as source - but don't delete the factoid "because it's unsourced" - it's correct, it just needs a source. Sharpfang (talk) 09:07, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]