On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Trask, Robert E wrote:
> There are actually SIX things (Orbital Elements) you have know to
> predict an objects location at a given time in orbit, and we can thank
> Mr. Kepler. They are not static and have to be updated constantly
Kepler is 100% Newtonian.
> because of gravitational and high atmosphere influences.
In absence of active course corrections I can nail a sat blindly, using
ephemerides days (possibly weeks) old. And tracking data not that stale
while not being realtime will give me the position down to a cm.
This is very different from knowing a position of a missile in boost
phase, possibly doing evasion maneuvers, where I have to have very
accurate, hard realtime data.
> Do a little thinking about why something like the ISS is in the orbit
> (inclination, direction) that it is in. Ever seen ANY space mission
> orbiting east to west?
We're not talking about cheap launch costs. We're talking kinetic kill,
i.e. achieving maximum delta v to the target. As such, the optimal way to
depopulate an orbit is to launch tungsten or depleted uranium pellets
countersense. The only countermeasure is to change orbit, quick.
> Go beyond the trivial...
I think you keep underestimating John.
-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/">leitl</a>
______________________________________________________________
ICBMTO : N48 10'07'' E011 33'53'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204
57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:54 MDT