Slashdot Mirror
Brazil Successfully Launches Its First Rocket To Space
thatshortkid writes "The Washington Times is reporting on Brazil's first successful space launch. Since it is closer to the equator, the task of getting up to space is easier, meaning much more cargo room over fuel. Hello commercial launch market! With this development, along with China's expanding space program, India making moves to space, and our own homegrown (ok, still growing) private space industry, where does this put NASA? Does it take a load off of them to pursue bigger endeavors, or will NASA slowly decline in relevance?"
You get a bigger boost from the rotation of the earth near the equater. Sort of a slingshot effect.
- The race is not [always] to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. -
Most of the effort in getting into space is not in getting up, but in getting enough speed. You have to be going several km/sec to stay in low earth orbit. The Earth spins pretty fast, about 0.4km/sec at the equator, and getting less and less as you get farther away, finally resulting in zero speed at the poles. Every bit of speed you gain from the Earth's spin is a bit of speed you don't have to provide with your rocket. This means you need less fuel, can carry greater payloads, etc.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
You mean like all the Apollo and Mercury and Gemini gear that was built by NASA didn't...wait, that all was private enterprise at work there too.
P -4009/ v1p3a.htm
0 4/ ch9-1.html
Do people really think all that stuff was built by NASA? Well, if you do, it wasn't. Boeing, Lockheed,North American, and the list goes on. IIRC the LEM had over 4000 subcontractors sending things into Lockheed for the assembly of it.
Look here
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/S
"In addition, the Apollo Project Office, which had been part of the MSC Flight Systems Division, would now report directly to the MSC Director and would be responsible for planning and directing all activities associated with the completion of the Apollo spacecraft project. Primary functions to be performed by the Office would include:
Monitor the work of the Apollo Principal Contractor NAA and Associate Contractors."
Principal contractor NAA, well that means North American Aircraft, because they were building it and developing the technology.
Sorry to snap, but wow it's annoying when people accuse NASA of falling behind because they've not outsourced, when in fact, that's what NASA does to get stuff built.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-42
List of big contractors and agencies.
Narr
That's right. All your base.
Now, the escape velocity is the same everywhere, but you get a headstart.
It is also true that launching nearer the equator helps with orbits- it's only possible to launch to an orbit that passes over the launch site (without doing a 'dogleg' which wastes lots of fuel.) All orbits cross the equator, so it's the best place to launch from that point of view. However, the equatorial orbits don't pass over, say, Kazakhstan or New York, so you can't as efficiently launch from there to Geosynchronous orbits or other near-equatorial orbits.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Yes. Note that almost all existing spaceports are close to the equator (or as close as is practical given national boundaries). The United States launches from Florida. Russia launches from Baikonur in Kazakhstan (not all that far south, but about as far as you can get and still be in the boundaries of the former Soviet Union). The European Space Agency launches from French Guiana in South America.
Aye carrumba!!! Aye-eee!!!!
No need to mock Brazil with Mexican-ish expressions.
As if everything below Texas were some sort of uniform Hispanic cultural goo. People don't even speak Spanish in Brazil.
The US calls these sounding rockets.
Hopefully Brazil will get its satellite launch program back up and running. It was severely damaged when one of the solid rocket motors ignited in a rocket being set up on the pad for launch, which destroyed the pad and killed the technicians working to set it up.
In fact Werner von Braun took some interest in the Indian space programme, in the 60s.
India's first satellite was launched 30 years ago, called Aryabhata-I named after the 6th century Indian mathematician, Aryabhata.
Also, the launching station at Thumba is right on the Magnetic Equator. A story covering this can be seen here. Also,
A map of the world's space centers is available.
Actually, the advantages are there, but not huge... In order to achieve a typical LEO, you need (ideally) a delta-v of not quite 8000 m/s. Launching from the equator provides ~470 m/s of that delta-v, if you're shooting for an equatorial orbit, rather than pole-to-pole. Launching from Florida means you only get ~400 m/s plus the sinusoidal trajectory relative to the surface (the orbit is circular, but the axis is not the same as the Earth's). The dry-mass (empty) to wet-mass (fully fueled) ratio is a logarithmic function, so that 70 m/s translates to a percent or two of additional payload mass, but that's all.
Caveat: the actual delta-v needed is closer to 10000 m/s because of various factors. Atmospheric drag and other stuff contribute, but mostly launching straight up then kicking over means a highly eccentric orbit and the extra delta-v means not hitting the atmosphere at perigee.
Hey, I finally got some use out of my graduate level orbital mechanics class!
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
With the exception of the Shuttle and some sounding rockets, the launch vehicle market has been privatized for years. If you want a Delta or Atlas launch, you negotiate a contract with Boeing or Lockheed-Martin, not NASA.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat