Re: [amsat-bb] What to do IF we regain control of AO-40

[sco@xxxxxxxxxxx]

At 11:52 PM 12/18/2000 , you wrote:
>I think you are jumping to conclusions my friend.
>
>1.) Just because the valve stuck once doesn't mean it will do so again.

But if it failed the first time in flight I would assume the odds are great 
that it is not dependable or predictable [no control ability] at best.

>2.) Final trajectory can be reached by a series of smaller, short burns (at
>least that would make sense) that will help easy the bird into orbit.

The last time we could not control the length of the burn ... now you say a 
series of short burns will be good. Why do you now assume that we can 
control the length of a burn in the future?

>3.) We have not necessarily "lost" it because of the burn.  The two are
>coincidental events and it has not been determined that they are causal.

True enough.

>4.) Once we get the bird back, telemetry from it will allow the ground crew
>to determine both what happened (assuming we don't need to reset it) and
>what is going on with the engine valves.

We hope.

>5.) If you wish to see what the footprint of the bird looks like, why don't
>you put it into a tracking program and see!  Let's put it in an easy form:
>The bird currently has an orbit of some 40,000 miles perigee or so.
>Geosynchronous satellites have an orbit of about 23,000 miles.  So we easily
>cover half the earth at a time.  However, I do not know if this current
>orbit is stable or if we'd end up with an AO-13 effect.

Just thinking of what some of the options may lead us to. Is there an 
electric motor to do small corrections with?

>6.) I don't think P3D has enough umph to escape Earth orbit.

Well then that is good and we might risk another engine burn if that is the 
case.

W4SCO


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