China's Space Program News Thread
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"载人登月,载人登火"
Intended for manned trips to the moon and Mars.
Intended for manned trips to the moon and Mars.
On that note, .
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is also in near polar orbit. Actually any survey and reconnaissance satellite must be in a near polar orbit to be able to scan the whole planet using the self rotation of the planet.
Aerobreaking is merely another means to decelerate by air friction. However, it can not change the orbital plane as the retro-thrustor does. The plane change of MRO was done during the same burn as the orbit capture. The plane change is a must because the spacecraft flies from earth to mars on almost identical plane (earth and Mars equator, also the plane that they orbit the sun), Mars self-rotation axis is about 90 degree to this plane.
I had another post in this thread some days ago explaining the difference.
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For traditional sats, yes, but for the X-37B and the Shenlong (sp) also I presume, they can use aerobraking to change planes. Kinda nifty, actually.
When you use aerobraking you loose potential energy that keeps you in the orbit. After using aerobraking, you end up in an orbit with lower potential energy (lower altitude). This is not MOR's purpose. MOR did this only because it had higher initial potential energy than needed for final orbit, from 46000x100km to 486X112km.
Yes X-37B can change plane by aerobraking, but WITH the cost of loosing altitude, to regain altitude it has to burn fuel. However, traditional sat can do the same so long as there is fuel. And since you have to consume fuel to regain the altitude, why not use thrustor to change plane in the first place? So there is nothing special in X-37B in this regard (orbital maneuver), or the X-37B's wing is primarily for other purpose such as long range maneuver inside atmosphere.
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