At 12:32 22/09/02, Sean Sullivan wrote: >Hi, > >I have a question about atmospheric drag, and it seems like someone here >probably knows the answer, or can point me in the right direction ... > >I'm working on the Mars Gravity Biosatellite, planned for launch in 2005, >flying about a dozen mice on a rotating spacecraft to study the effects of >a partial gravity environment. This is a volunteer project involving MIT, >U of Washington, and U of Queensland. Since we have a re-entry capsule, >this would be in low LEO -- possibly repeating groundtracks at mean motion >16, or possibly slightly higher (up to about 15.75). > >We are trying to estimate propellant requirements for orbit adjustment >under various strategies for handling drag and re-entry phasing. The >major unknown is a good estimate of the rate of altitude decay. Also >relevant is how this would increase if we were away from solar minima >(making sure we can support a long launch delay without re-design). Sean, the woeld data centre A ( US national space science data center ) has both online atmospheric models, and downloadable code ( fortan ) for the models. Start at http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/space/model/ and check it out. For your situation I expect the msis-86 model is the one of choice. Tony Beresford Adelaide, South Australia ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Sep 22 2002 - 00:27:49 EDT