Re: Soyuz TMA-18M launch orbit estimations

From: Chris Jones via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2015 23:36:19 -0400
On 9/1/2015 12:53 PM, Jon . via Seesat-l wrote:

> A Soyuz-FG rocket is cheduled to launch the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft
> with three new crew members to the ISS. The launch is aimed to be the
> 2015/9/2 at 04:37:43 UTC from Tyura-Tam Baikonur Kosmodrome. The
> vehicle will fly in the classical 2-day renzezvous trajectory,
> probably due to the orbit raising maneuver that yesterday occurred.

A report I've read is that this is due to two closely spaced (in time)
debris avoidance maneuvers in July that made it impossible to launch
when they wanted to and meet all the criteria, including landing
lighting conditions in case of a failure to dock, or return to earth
after the planned mission length (which, while on a different
spacecraft, is about 10 days).  In any case, the decision to switch to a
2 day rendezvous was announced shortly after the second avoidance
maneuver, and I believe yesterday's maneuver was just to set up ISS for
the new plan.
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Received on Tue Sep 01 2015 - 22:36:50 UTC

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