Abstract
This chapter tells the story of orbital tugs and upper stage concepts that would have allowed for a smooth movement of people and hardware from orbit to orbit. For instance, they would have brought satellites to an awaiting Orbiter or Space Station for servicing. Space tugs were part of the post-Apollo vision for develo** Low-Earth Orbit, and hope they could be built faded away only in the early 1990s.
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Notes
- 1.
The adjective “spinning” refers to the common practice of spinning a spacecraft along its long axis during orbital manoeuvring to maintain directional stability. It is an effective method to stabilize the spacecraft trajectory resulting in substantial attitude control system fuel savings.
- 2.
During the ascent four so-called intact abort modes could be invoked based on altitude, velocity and severity of the emergency. For each abort mode the Orbiter was expected to safely landing either at the Kennedy Space Center or at selected airstrips in Europe or Africa. Other abort modes were possible for even more serious conditions such as loss of all three main engines. These were called contingency modes and they entailed the crew attemting to reach an emergency landing strip on the US East Coast or a safe altitude for bailing out. For a contingency abort mode the chance of survival of the Orbiter and its payload were much reduced if compared to an intact abort mode.
- 3.
This is akin to place your arms and hands in front of your face to shield it by a nearby explosion.
- 4.
In fact, both capabilities would be added many years later following the Columbia accident.
- 5.
Hughes Aircraft Company had built the spacecraft for Satellite Business System, a private communication company owned by subsidiaries of Aetna Life and Casualty, COMSAT General Corporation and IBM.
- 6.
This would be typical for any Shuttle-based IUS deployment.
- 7.
This include the deployment of the Magnum satellite for electronic signals intelligent (ELINT) on STS-51C, the first Space Shuttle mission flown for the DoD.
- 8.
While a spacecraft is considered as the payload for a launcher, the payload of a spacecraft is the complement of equipment designed to perform the desired mission. The remaining mass is taken up by propellant and hardware to operate the spacecraft and payload.
- 9.
Later renamed Ulysses.
- 10.
Historically, the space industry does not apply shift working to the manufacturing process of spaceworthy hardware. It enhances the risks of degrading the quality of the assembly due to human factor errors, such as incomplete handovers, typically arising when maintaining production across shifts.
- 11.
The USAF was meant to rely only and exclusively on the Space Shuttle but uncertainty on how well it would perform, led to the agreement that an expendable vehicle capability had to be retained. At least until when the Space Shuttle had proved its worth. The USAF was diffident in putting all of their eggs in one basket so much so that they strongly opposed the policy of having to depend on one launcher type only.
- 12.
When liquid hydrogen and oxygen are mixed together, the result is explosive indeed!
- 13.
The NASA Parker Solar Probe and the ESA Solar Orbiter are, to date, the closest spacecraft ever sent towards the Sun, with the NASA’s explorer scheduled to reach within 9.86 radiii (6.9 million km or 4.3 milion miles) from the center of the Sun. Both spacecraft employed multiple planetary gravity assists manevouers at Venus to contain the overall propellant mass within reasonable value and leave sufficient mass for the scientific instruments.
- 14.
Of course, in such a scenario it would be prudent to ensure that the escape trajectory would not intercept any planet in neighbouring solar systems, just in case they were inhabited. Surely we would not want to be known as the fly-tippers of this part of the galaxy who cannot get rid of the nasty habit of indiscriminately dum** waste whenever we see fit!
- 15.
The number 19 was dictated by geometric considerations.
- 16.
Electric thrusters can be operated for a long time. However, they cannot offer the same thrust of a chemical rocket. It is by operating continuously for a long time that they build up enough delta-v. Despite the longer time, they do so by consuming a much smaller quantity of propellant compared to a chemical rocket tasked with achieving the same velocity change.
- 17.
This recovery is necessary due to cost as well as tile fact that their uncontrolled reentry would pose a hazard.
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Sivolella (2017) The Space Shuttle Program: Technologies and Accomplishments. – Springer International Publishing; ISBN 978-3319549446; Paperback: 372 pages.
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Sivolella, D. (2022). Orbital Hop**. In: The Untold Stories of the Space Shuttle Program. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19653-9_4
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