> Just how difficult is it to change the inclination of an orbit? Just to add an example, the recent DSP orbital insertion burn (or its exhaust plume) that a number of people saw from widely scattered locations was in part an inclination change. (It was also of course to circularize the payload's orbit from GTO to geostationary.) Here's a link to one of the threads about it: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Feb-2004/0099.html I can't say much about the physics, but I do know that one advantage of launching from the equator (Sea Launch) or near it (Kourou, French Guiana) is that it costs less in terms of inclination changes. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Mar 10 2004 - 04:20:17 EST