[TriLUG] OT -- NASA Shuttle Launch Today
Joseph Mack NA3T
jmack at wm7d.net
Fri Jul 8 13:15:46 EDT 2011
On Fri, 8 Jul 2011, Warren Myers wrote:
I'm sure a TSA pat down is involved somewhere.
> My guess is that since they can't know the actual launch
> time in advance (eg, today it was !2:30 late), that timing
> the arrival is more complex
Early launches to the ISS had a window of just under
+/-1min. Outside that I'd assumed that you wouldn't have
enough fuel to get to the ISS. The delay today was outside
the window of the earlier launches
> The ISS orbits in a plane that is not optimal for launches
> from Kennedy to reach, but is instead a compromise to
> allow Soyuz launches from Baikonur. It takes time for the
> small OMS thrusters on the Shuttle tomake the needed
> changes to the orbit.
A shuttle launch to the ISS is at an inclination of 51.6deg,
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/nasafact/tal.htm
(which is why you can see the shuttle on a night launch to
the ISS from anywhere on the East coast). This is the same
as the inclination of the ISS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station
so no plane change is required. A plane change is enormously
expensively energetically, and AFAIK aren't feasible.
The lat of Baikonur I just found is 45.9551.
http://www.spacetoday.org/Rockets/Spaceports/LaunchSites.html#Baikonur
I'd assumed the inclination of the ISS was the lat of
Baikonur, so I don't know what's going on there.
Joe
--
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!
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