On Orion 3 salvage. My opinion, no salvage is possible. Here's a quick why:
1 - Shuttle rescue. Technically possible, but a HS-601 is not man rated. In the post Challenger era, it isn't going to be brought back to earth. You can get 99% of the fuel off of it, but not 100%. Even if this aspect is disregarded, NASA has a very full manifest with the Space Station. NASA did rescue a Hughes built Intelsat 6 a few years back by attaching a PAM to it. I think that if a rescue was possible, this would be it. But the expense of the shuttle flight, training and preparation of the crew would probably pale in comparison to a replacement. I'm not sure how Intelsat justified it when it did it long ago, but I suspect NASA wanted the experience of in orbit rescue,
etc. and underwrote the cost. My guess. And then, if Hughes has the solar arrays deployed, you can kiss of the PAM based salvage anyway. The kick from a PAM would snap those arrays off! (or at least stress them past design limits)
2- Exotic lunar flybys. Two Christmas' ago Hughes impressed the heck out of me, at the very least, when the rescued a satellite stuck in GEO transfer orbit, but at a high inclination, when a Proton got it to the right altitude, but failed to remove the inclination. Frequent readers of my babblings will remember that inclination is expensive to
remove. While the moon is a long way from GEO in distance traveled, it isn't that far in delta-V. A little boost to the moon, gravity assist to remove inclination, and then back down to GEO. Very impressive work. Note that it was "cheaper" to go to the moon and back than to remove the inclination at GEO.
Problem is, Orion 3 is stuck in LEO. I don't know how much fuel is on board, nor the Isp of its on-board propulsion. But I can make some good guesses. My guesses lead me to believe that it doesn't have the kick to get up to GEO transfer orbit, let alone to the moon and then back. Here's another way to think of it... Out of all the fuel on board, you use about 80% of it to get on station, and the remainder (20%) keeps you there. SO, their 80% was going to get them from 15,000x200 km to 42,000x42,000 km or so. So, if they can get to 15,000x200 with less than the 20%, they could have a mission. Now they got to get from about 160x1400 km to 15,000x200 on the 20%. But it took 80% to get from 15,000x200 to 42,000x42x000. Does that put it in
perspective?
I'm going to fall short of saying it is a lost cause. I've learned never to under estimate human ingenuity when your back is against the wall. I didn't put much thought into the problem, other than punching a few buttons on a calculator. I'm not optimistic, however.
Mr A |
