daemon@decwrl.UUCP (02/09/84)
From: dvinci::fisher (Burns Fisher, MRO3-1/E13, 231-4108) One thing I haven't seen mentioned here in the discussions about having a shuttle flight pick up the errant satellites...they are spinning! From the looks of it on the news it must be in the 10s of RPMs. Since the things are spun up on a turntable in the shuttle bay, and since they are intended to remain spinning for their entire useful life, I assume they would not have roll control jets to "despin" them. That would back it very difficult to grab them at all, say nothing of grabbing them without smashing the solar cells, antennae, etc which are around the outside. What I did wonder about, though, is whether it would be practical at the end of the mission to do a rendezvous with one of them and take pictures to help the failure review boards. Does the orbiter have enough OMS fuel to make even a fast pass without matching orbits? Burns UUCP: ... decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher or ...allegra!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher or ... ucbvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ARPA: decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@Berkeley or decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@SU-Shasta
alb@alice.UUCP (Adam L. Buchsbaum) (02/10/84)
There are two reasons why the satellites cannot be retrieved.
(1) They do not have grappling hooks, i.e. the RMS can't
grab them. Why not? They were designed to fly at 22,000
miles, where they wouldn't have been able to be retrieved
anyway.
(2) They are too unstable rotationally.
As for rendezvousing with one of them, NASA said that would use
up too much fuel.