by Astrogator Mike | Oct 5, 2013 | General Comments
LADEE continues to approach the Moon, now nearing 100,000 km in altitude.
Note the last few parameters on the left. Lunar orbit period is zero (hyperbolic still), as is the Lunar Altitude of Apoapsis. The Lunar Altitude of periapsis isn’t accurate either, as the spacecraft is still mostly in Earth orbit. The Lunar disk is getting larger, and the Earth disk smaller:
This shot shows the upcoming portion of the trajectory, when the Earth-bound trajectory is taken over by Lunar gravity:
The final shot is the best, our Lunar approach:
by Astrogator Mike | Oct 4, 2013 | General Comments
LADEE is rapidly approaching the Moon. Depending on who you talk to, you can consider the spacecraft to be within the “Sphere of Influence” of the Moon somewhere near 66,000 km (on LADEE we switch central bodies on our numerical integrators at 50,000 km, but that’s not a magic number). So we’re not quite Moon-Centered yet, but that doesn’t stop us from giving you pictures in a Moon centered frame.
As you can see, showing the Earth orbit no longer has great utility:
[Note: Velocity is still Earth-relative] I have to still show my favorite view of the phasing loops, the Earth-Moon rotating coordinate frame, but Earth-bound phasing loops are about to be less relevant.
But as much as I like the phasing loops, this is the view we really should be thinking about (and I like it so much I just tweeted it!):
And this view gets me very excited:
But we still can look back to where we came from:
If you check the dates on the pictures, you can see what order I created them in, as the dates don’t all match and I’m animating in real time.
by Astrogator John | Oct 2, 2013 | General Comments
Today in the Flight Dynamics Room at Ames, fellow Astrogator Craig Nickel called out when LADEE became closer to the Moon than to the Earth – at 10:07 PDT tonight – and it’s not coming back!
by Astrogator Mike | Oct 1, 2013 | General Comments
LADEE on 10-1-2013 16:56 UTC (Earth-Centered Inertial View)
LADEE on 10-1-2013 16:56 UTC (Rotating Coordinate Frame)
LADEE on 10-1-2013 16:56 UTC (Top View)
LADEE passed perigee this morning near 4 AM PDT and is now headed for the Moon. Currently the spacecraft is above GEO, with the TCM-1 maneuver coming at 3 PM PDT today (1 Oct. 2013)
by Astrogator Mike | Oct 1, 2013 | General Comments
LADEE on 10-1-2013 07:13 UTC (Rotating Coordinate Frame)
LADEE on 10-1-2013 07:13 UTC (Earth Inertial Coordinate Frame)
LADEE on 10-1-2013 07:13 UTC (Top View)
LADEE now under the GEO belt, and heading for its last perigee.
