aircooled wrote:
My question is: Why are they launching something into an equatorial orbit, from Virginia!?
They have to be giving up a good amount of free energy.
They give up a little bit. But there are economic benefits to having a launch facility in VA (NASA got a good deal on the land from VA, Orbital is able to construct and move rockets around there easily, etc.). It's only a few meters per second extra to correct the orbit anyway.
All that aside, the ISS was slated to pass directly overhead 45 minutes after launch. Maybe this would have made a plane change unnecessary.
Note that these weren't just some old, sturdy, classic Soviet engineering engines, these were lightweight engines meant for the second(hopefully not exploding like the first one) revision of the doomed N1 moon rocket that was never built. They were never flight tested until recently when they were put into these rockets, and one successful test of a cargo only Soyuz variant last year.
Turns out these blow up too.
aircooled wrote:
My question is: Why are they launching something into an equatorial orbit, from Virginia!?
They have to be giving up a good amount of free energy.
the ISS isn't on an equatorial orbit: i've seen it fly almost right over my head in central MN.. since it's a collaboration primarily between the USA and Russia, it's at an orbit that is a compromise between launching rockets to get to it from Florida or Kazakhstan. a launch from latitudes anywhere within it's northernmost and southernmost reaches can be relatively easily done without the need for drastic orbital changes after launch.
aircooled wrote:
My question is: Why are they launching something into an equatorial orbit, from Virginia!?
They have to be giving up a good amount of free energy.
I love the name of the place.. "mid-atlantic regional spaceport"
fifty
HalfDork
10/30/14 9:16 p.m.
mad_machine wrote:
aircooled wrote:
My question is: Why are they launching something into an equatorial orbit, from Virginia!?
They have to be giving up a good amount of free energy.
I love the name of the place.. "mid-atlantic regional spaceport"
It's the most active launch pad in North America. Neat place if you have a chance to see a launch.
