At 16:12 10/03/04, Skywise wrote: >Just how difficult is it to change the inclination of an orbit? >Could it be done with an ion engine? >Brian One of the problems in using an ion engine would be the repeated cycling on/off of the engine, or repeated attitude maneuvers needed to force the crosstrack direction. To change the inclination, one needs to thrust in a crosstrack direction (crosstrack meaning orthogonal to velocity in horizontal plane) as you cross the equator. Example: If going North across the equator, thrust to the left to increase inclination, if going South, thrust to the right to increase inclination. So you must do either one of two things: 1) Maintain crosstrack attitude at all times, but only thrust on one side of the orbit - meaning you have to cycle the engine on/off every half orbit. 2) Keep engine on at all times - but do a 180 yaw maeuver twice per orbit. As stated by others, going to a very highly eccentric orbit would change the rules a bit. Gene Heyler Columbia MD ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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