Most satellites live between 500 and 800 kilometres up. That altitude is a compromise: high enough to stay in orbit for years without much effort, but far enough away to give up resolution, latency, and signal along the way.
Very Low Earth Orbit — the band roughly between 200 and 350 km — flips that compromise. Fly three times closer to Earth and the physics rewards you across the board.
Closer is simply better
- Sharper imagery. Resolution scales with altitude. The same sensor resolves about three times more detail at 200 km than at 600 km.
- Lower latency. A shorter path means a faster round-trip — pushing satellite links toward the sub-30 ms mark where they compete with cable and fibre.
- Stronger signal. Free-space path loss falls with the inverse square of range, so the same antenna and power deliver dramatically more signal.
So why doesn't everyone fly there?
The same atmosphere that makes VLEO attractive also drags satellites down. Conventional propulsion runs out of propellant trying to fight it — which is why VLEO was dismissed as impractical for decades.
That's the problem Orbitt set out to solve. Air-breathing electric propulsion collects the residual atmosphere and uses it as propellant, so a satellite can stay at 200 km for years instead of weeks.
What it unlocks
VLEO isn't a marginal improvement on LEO. It's a different orbit with different economics — smaller satellites that match the performance of much heavier ones, links that close from below, and orbits that clear themselves when a mission ends. It's finally operable.