Comment by exe34
3 hours ago
Presumably they get exactly the same amount of sunlight 100% of the time instead of a few hours peak on earth? I'd say 8x is in the right order of magnitude.
3 hours ago
Presumably they get exactly the same amount of sunlight 100% of the time instead of a few hours peak on earth? I'd say 8x is in the right order of magnitude.
My layman expectation would have been much higher. It's got no atmosphere refracting anything and it's closer to the source of energy.
The distance from earth to the sun is 150 million kilometers and your orbit is probably only a few hundred kilometers up (and realistically it’s sun-synchronous and perpendicular to the earth-sun axis), so the distance change doesn’t really matter.
LEO isn't much closer to the sun, and the atmosphere probably doesn't absorb a huge amount at the wavelengths they work.