Comment by alangibson
11 hours ago
Shading does work; JWST does this. However I don't see how you can make it work for satellite data centers. You would constantly be engaging attitude control as you realigned the panels to keep the radiators in shade. You'd run out of thruster fuel so fast you'd get like a month out of each satellite
attitude control doesn't need to consume propellant, there's reaction wheels.
but you'd rarely ever need it though: it just needs to rotate at a low angular velocity of 1 rotation per year to keep facing the sun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_attitude_determinat...