George Roberts wrote: > I read that this will be a kinetic only kill (no warhead explosion) > which implies that most of the delta v will slow down the satellite > pieces which might mean much of the debris will come down within half an > orbit. It's my understanding that at these extremely high velocities there is very little momentum exchange between the two colliding bodies. They basically liquify on contact and fly through each other. It's almost as if each exploded on its own at the same time and in the same place, but with their individual center of masses continuing on almost as if they hadn't hit. It's *not* as if the nearly-stationary impactor removed a big chunk of the spacecraft's orbital velocity and thus caused it to fall out of the sky. That has implications for the delta-v's applied to the fragments of the spacecraft (the impactor won't stay up as it's moving well below orbital velocity). That is, the fragments will fly out from the explosion but the center of mass of those fragments will remain in pretty much the same orbit as the spacecraft before the hit. Until their different altitudes and drag coefficients start to bring them down, of course. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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