[TriLUG] OT -- NASA Shuttle Launch Today

[Brian Daniels]

On 07/08/2011 01:15 PM, Joseph Mack NA3T wrote:
> A shuttle launch to the ISS is at an inclination of 51.6deg,

You're right.  They're burning more fuel to make that angle, but the 
orbital plane is being set during the launch, not afterward as I was 
thinking.

The two days appears to be taken up by the maneuvering changes that are 
still needed to bring the Orbiter and ISS into alignment:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/military/read.main/84859#4

"The Space Station itself is not flying directly over Launch Pad 39A at 
that moment. Waiting for such a coincidence would limit launch 
opportunities to only a few times a year. Instead, the Shuttle goes into 
the same orbit as the Station and then speeds up or slows down to catch 
up with the Station. That usually takes two days (the Russians do it the 
same way with Soyuz and Progress spacecraft.)"

--Brian



>
> 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
>


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