Solar orbiter speed8/8/2023 ![]() ![]() James Webb Space Telescope gets all shook up – launch delayed againĪnd the infamous missile shenanigans in orbit? "Whereas our colleagues in SDO have not had their lives made any easier by the ASAT test, it doesn't change our plan – we're somewhat on rails at this point and will be hurtling past Earth at a height of about 450km at 04:30 on the 27th, come what may."ĮSA's own figures put the altitude at 460km, to which Lakey says: "Flight Dynamics would be able to give an expected value to within some large number of decimal places but it would be relative to the centre of the Earth."Īs for the spacecraft itself, it remains in good health.LoRa to the Moon and back: Messages bounced off lunar surface using off-the-shelf hardware.NASA boffins seem to think we're worth saving from fiery asteroid death so they're shooting a spaceship at one. ![]() "Although they are no doubt wondering why we're making such a fuss about doing a CAM, seeing as they do them with some regularity these days," he adds. ESA has plenty of experience with dodging debris, although Lakey points out: "Unlike our friends next door in the Earth Observation division, things are complicated for us because of the inherent uncertainties in our trajectory and the time needed to process the tracking data." In Deep Space, debris isn't something the team is too concerned with, however, now it has jumped to the top of the agenda. The trajectory was plotted years ago, and this flyby is required to decrease the energy of the spacecraft ahead of its next closest observation of the Sun. "Because we always have a complete 'chain' of spacecraft attitude guidance onboard, we need to juggle with the new commands to make sure they don't clash with the old ones or end up with none at all," he says. It is, says Lakey, "about the quickest turnaround we can do." If a change is needed to tweak the trajectory, the team will only have a matter of hours to put together the instructions and get them onboard the Solar Orbiter. "If there's a likelihood of a collision greater than that, a CAM trajectory will be selected that has a lower chance of a collision and the lowest delta-V requirement." As for what would trigger an all-hands-to-the-pumps moment, "2*10 -5 for TCM-6h," he says. ![]() Hopefully all will go well, despite the increasing count of debris around Earth, and an adjustment will not be required. ![]()
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