Why haven’t we used Sun-Earth lagrange points 4 and 5

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Concidering we are using the unstable ones (L1 & L2). Is there a reason we aren’t using the only two stable ones for satellites?

In: Planetary Science

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

They are far away and there is no good use case for them at the moment. In the future they might be used for relay satellites to communicate with planets that are behind the Sun (as seen by Earth). With Mars rovers this isn’t a big deal – you program them to just wait until communication works again – but crewed missions are safer with uninterrupted communication in case they need assistance from Earth.

The instability of L1 and L2 isn’t an issue over the typical lifetime of spacecraft (~5-20 years). The points are close to Earth and they are great spots to observe the Sun and Earth (L1) or things far away, undisturbed by Earth and the Sun (L2).

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