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by perihelions
469 days ago
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I don't want to quibble just to be contrarian. Polaris Dawn was at the International Space Station's inclination, 52°, which is the most common destination for human astronauts. Isn't usually considered a polar orbit. I want rather to clarify a really neat point, about what the other mission's doing. From KSC, you can conventionally only launch to inclinations below 62° [0] (constrained by populated landmasses). To get to a true polar orbit from Florida, that means they have to attempt a curved launch [1]—something that's pretty rare, and (to my knowledge) Falcon itself never tried before. (The parent comment was right to ask whether a polar orbit is possible: it does create interesting challenges). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_Space_Center_Launch_Co... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogleg_maneuver |
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