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Comment by p1mrx | Hacker News Reader

> The launch pad will be built some 350 kilometers from the coast in the remotest corner of Germany's Exclusive Economic Zone.

https://maritime-spatial-planning.ec.europa.eu/media/14877

Looks like the latitude will be around 55°N, not exactly ideal for a spaceport.

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55° seems ideal if you want to launch at an inclination high enough that the orbits will go over Germany (the domestic tech stuff mentioned in the article) or areas that are of interest for defense reasons (eg Russia)

From what I learned from KSP, a high latitude launch site is helpful for polar orbit. That's why Vandenberg is used for this purpose over Cape Canaveral (or other equatorial launch sites) in the US.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out because there are other nations participating in ESA that have both land and launch sites that are at higher latitudes than Germany's floating launch site (e.g., [1]).

[1]: https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/13/this-arctic-space-c...

For reference, Russia's Baiknour is at 45.965°N (about a thousands kilometers difference, not counting longitude.)

A high latitude should work fine for Earth observing satellites that are suited for polar orbits, but I can't help but think it would make more sense for Germany to make a deal with France to share the Guiana Space Centre.

I imagine that having a launch site on far away location isn't ideal for R&D. Location is a US' advantage that's hard to catch up. Not having any lands for east is great.

Depends on the orbit you want to launch into.

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