Odds n Sods

[justapax]

Originally Posted by condor17

Justa , may be you can answer this ques. which has puzzled for ages .

With this being the case ...
'''''Kourou, in French Guiana, about the best place on the planet for launching satellites. it's really close to the Equator. If it wasn't for political reasons (Cape Canaveral is on US soil) everything would be launched from there.'''''

Why has the UK gone for Space port Shetland . 60 degrees North ?
Perfidious Albion or politics , and is it workable ?

A friend lead the 'DOVER' satellite team on the old Virgin B744 launching out of Newquay , St Mawgan . She took up the idea of a 5th engine mount on a B747 as a hardpoint for rockets carrying a payload . So Cornwall 50 degrees North as a launch point not so important as launching from 30,000' and 480 knots gave a catapult effect .

rgds condor .

If you're not launching from near the equator, it really doesn't matter where you launch from, it just means you burn more fuel getting into a geo-synchronous orbit.

I didn't know about Shetland. Probably politics has more to do with than orbital engineering.

[SimonPaddo]

I probably should know better, but for polar orbiters does it make much difference?

[justapax]

Originally Posted by SimonPaddo

I probably should know better, but for polar orbiters does it make much difference?

No, only for equatorial orbits, which tend to get the heavy stuff like comsats, launched on the Ariane-6.