8
votes
Disposing of Obsolete Satellites by Propelling to the Sun
For an object to fall into the Sun, from close to the Earth, its angular momentum, which is conserved in any ballistic trajectory, would have to be reduced close to zero - since its velocity vector ...
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5
votes
Disposing of Obsolete Satellites by Propelling to the Sun
The Earth is moving around the Sun at about 30 km/s so all the satellites orbiting the Earth share this velocity (plus or minus their orbital velocity relative to the Earth).
To fall into the Sun this ...
- 376
5
votes
Are rockets deliberately throttled back towards the end of the burn to spare crew and airframe g-forces?
Partial answer submitted as a counterexample for "throttling down is done for humans onboard"
The uncrewed final flight of the Saturn V, the launch of the Skylab, also "throttled down&...
- 178k
4
votes
Disposing of Obsolete Satellites by Propelling to the Sun
In addition, to the already decent answers, I'll provide some numbers which will prove the point. Earth's tangential speed in orbit is about $30~km/s$. Let's take a typical satellite mass as $1100~kg$....
3
votes
Are rockets deliberately throttled back towards the end of the burn to spare crew and airframe g-forces?
I expect the throttle-back was to limit the G-forces on the crew more than anything else. 3g is already pretty uncomfortable for a human, and anything higher could make the crew unable to respond in ...
- 2,734
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