[AR] Re: Ionic orientation (was: Falcon 9 flight today)
- From: Norman Yarvin <yarvin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 03:19:27 -0500
On Sun, Oct 06, 2013 at 07:02:15PM -0400, Norman Yarvin wrote:
>On Sun, Oct 06, 2013 at 03:43:42PM -0600, Ben Brockert wrote:
>>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.
>
>Oh, so that's how the system Chertok writes about in "Rockets and
>People" works.
>
>It didn't always work correctly, though [...]
(reading further) ... and they, uh, learned the hard way that you
don't try to use the ionic orientation system at the same time as
you're firing thrusters(!).
--
Norman Yarvin http://yarchive.net/blog
Other related posts:
