All the news articles are saying that space shuttle Endeavor is on standby to rescue folks from Atlantis should something go wrong. They specifically say this is necessary because the International Space Station is in an "unreachable orbit". I’m curious as to what this means. What physics would prevent a space vehicle such as Atlantis from moving from Hubble’s orbit to the ISS should it wish to?
amount of fuel available – they only have enough fuel to reach the orbit desired, make adjustments necessary to reach the Hubble, and then to return to earth.
The space station would require fuel to get to a different orbit, stop the shuttle, and then chase down the space station – much more required than to just return to earth.
February 16th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
amount of fuel available – they only have enough fuel to reach the orbit desired, make adjustments necessary to reach the Hubble, and then to return to earth.
The space station would require fuel to get to a different orbit, stop the shuttle, and then chase down the space station – much more required than to just return to earth.
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