Originally Posted by
peekay4
Changing the orbital plane can be done by making only a tiny, temporary change to the inclination. Changing the inclination isn't the aim -- typically the change is only a fraction of a degree -- just enough to very slowly drift the satellite towards the new plane. It can take a year before the satellite arrives at an adjacent plane.
True, switching only the plane I guess can be done with extremely small inclination changes if there is enough time to wait for the "drift".
Originally Posted by
peekay4
Thanks, I hadn't read that. Looks like the next launch will go for plane 3. Do you know how many drifters will be on the next launch?
No, and for the last launch it was only published after the launch. I anyway suspect that they did not finalize that yet for the next launch, especially since they have a several month testing period before the second batch. I would assume that based on what they find, they will keep optimizing the overall slotting until very shortly before the launch, and then re-evaluate depending on how precise the orbit insertion by the rocket was.
There is a website about the configuration here:
Iridium Constellation Status