...and Earth is striking first!
I took this from my front yard. The weather was fortunately good, and I have decent view towards Vandenberg. I could see it, although it got a bit dim eventually, all the way into some of the second stage burn. The booster landed off the coast of Mexico, so I could not see that burn.
I am not sure why they went with a polar orbit before sending it on it's way, but it was nice to be able to see it. Impact should be Sept / Oct.
I wonder how long it will take to detect a change in the orbit...
aircooled said:I am not sure why they went with a polar orbit before sending it on it's way, but it was nice to be able to see it.
Yeah, the launch from Vandenburg does seem odd for an interplanetary mission and I haven't seen anything to explain it yet.
alfadriver said:I wonder how long it will take to detect a change in the orbit...
They're targeting a small asteroid which is a "moon" of a slightly larger asteroid. The reason for this is that a change in velocity will be much more apparent in that reference frame than in trying to measure the change in orbit around the sun.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:alfadriver said:I wonder how long it will take to detect a change in the orbit...
They're targeting a small asteroid which is a "moon" of a slightly larger asteroid. The reason for this is that a change in velocity will be much more apparent in that reference frame than in trying to measure the change in orbit around the sun.
Two things about that- it's pretty amazing to me that we can see a moon around an asteroid. But given the relative size difference (610kg vs. a Great Pyramid)- it will be interesting to learn how long it takes to detect a change.
One of the engineers associated with the project was just on a podcast I listen to, he gets into some interesting details:
The other three hosts are comedians, two of whom have math/science backgrounds, but if you can't handle some jokes mixed in with your science, you've been warned.
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