The Astrogator's Guild

A few LADEE Videos

Astrogator Mike — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:48:44 +0000

I’m busy working the LADEE mission these days, and I’ve got some stuff coming on it (as soon as I get it cleared by NASA). In the mean time, 2 videos already up on LADEE:

An overview:

And a bit more showing some of the propulsion system:

And while [...]

AM4, Antarctica and the Moon

Astrogator Mike — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:28:42 +0000

Paul Spudis does an excellent job describing why Express-AM4 should be saved, and then makes a comparison to how things should proceed for Lunar Exploration.

Read here:

Can We Repurpose Space Assets?

AM4 is still up, although reports from Russia show it scheduled to be de-orbited on the 25th.

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Russians to Decide Fate of Express-AM4

Astrogator Mike — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:36:03 +0000

Astrogator Mike has worked a lot recently on a re-purposing plan for the Express-AM4 spacecraft, and is quoted extensively in this article.

Don’t splash the bird!

Russians to decide on Polar Broadband Plan

This could be a great mission for science, and involved some decent Earth-orbiting astrogation. Stay tuned for more details of this [...]

Better Spacecraft Re-entry Predictions

Astrogator Mike — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 18:59:02 +0000

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the Air Force Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) came up with a new approach to predicting re-entry while trying to track Phobos-Grunt. Article here:

A New Approach to Predicting Re-Entry

Basically their approach was to take a supercomputer and give it access to the best real-time tracking available. [...]

Geometry Relating To 2012 DA14 Earth Flyby in 2013

Astrogator Mike — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:44:00 +0000

(Follow-up from Dan Adamo)

It seems Nature has supplied a timely footnote for my 2011 AG5 risk corridor analysis. Attached are heliocentric and geocentric plots spanning NEO 2012 DA14′s close Earth approach on 15 Feb 2013. Recent Horizons prediction data (reference ephemeris JPL#15) for that event appear in the following table.

Converting [...]

Earth Asteroid Imacts: The Earth Risk Corridor

Astrogator Mike — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 15:46:49 +0000

The following is from Dan Adamo, guest astrogator and a former Flight Dynamics Officer at JSC. Dan runs a mail list called the ATIG (Astrodynamics Technical Interchange Group). Last year he graciously allowed me(Mike) to be a part of the group, and since then I get interesting articles from him every month or so. This [...]

How to Deorbit a Spacecraft

Astrogator Mike — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 20:26:44 +0000

The recent uncontrolled reentry of the UARS spacecraft got a lot of attention last week as NASA and the JSpOC tried to track the vehicle as it reentered.

It doesn’t have to be done this way, however. On March 13, 2011, a commercial spacecraft was purposefully reentered into the Pacific ocean 3000 miles southeast of [...]

How Reentering Spacecraft Are Tracked: NASA vs. JSpOC

Astrogator Mike — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 19:19:50 +0000

On a previous post I mentioned that contrary to what a lot of the recent news reports imply, NASA itself is not in the business of tracking uncooperative or (in the case of UARS) dead spacecraft. NASA normally will determine a satellite’s orbit (called “Orbit Determination”) via communications with the spacecraft. Both ranging (measuring the [...]