[AR] Re: Falcon 9 flight today
- From: Ben Brockert <wikkit@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2013 15:43:42 -0600
For anybody else who hadn't heard of this system: it turns out that
from 60 to 40,000+ miles there are a useful number of thermal ions,
and the positive ions are basically stationary from the perspective of
an orbiting craft. Counting those ions with negatively charged sensor
grid/plate setups you can get pitch and yaw values relative to
direction of motion.
The US test flew it on a Gemini flight and it was significantly faster
to start up, higher bandwidth, and higher accuracy than their inertial
system.
On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 2:37 PM, Henry Spencer <henry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Sun, 6 Oct 2013, Chris Jones wrote:
>> The Soviets used to be the masters of this...
>> On Voskhod 1, it was announced that ion devices were used to aid the
>> control of the orientation of the spacecraft. Analysts jumped to the
>> conclusion that the Soviets had developed ion engines, when in reality
>> the devices were sensors to try to detect (not control) the orientation.
>
> In fairness, this one *might* not have been deliberately deceptive. The
> incorrect conclusion came about partly because the West had neglected the
> idea of using ion sensors for attitude measurement, so people didn't think
> of that option. (In fact, it's still a neglected technology in the West,
> despite the Soviet/Russian use and some successful Western experiments.)
>
> Henry Spencer
> henry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> (hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)
> (regexpguy@xxxxxxxxx)
>
>
Other related posts:
