On Wed, 08 Jan 2003 17:09:40 -0800, "Tony Fredericks"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Actually, the best practice would be to have your vertical velocity fall to
>0 as your horizontal velocity reaches orbital velocity for the selected
>altitude. Instant circularized orbit.
When you do the trajectory sims, you find that the gravity turn
trajectory that does this spends too much time in the atmosphere. A
gravity turn that gets you out of the atmosphere at reasonable cost
will, if it is not modified, put you in an orbit with an apogee
several hundred km above the surface. And if you only just have
enough energy to make orbit, then an orbit with apogee several hundred
km above the surface has a perigee several hundred km below the
surface.
This of course is hard on the vehicle. I believe it was Andrew Case
who called this maneuver "lithobraking." :-)
-R
--
"You haven't been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3."
-- Paul Crickmore
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