Chinese Rocket Fails To Put Two Satellites Into Correct Orbits (spaceflightnow.com) 113
schwit1 writes: Tracking data suggests that two Earth-observation satellites launched today by China's Long March 2D rocket were placed in the wrong orbits. Spaceflight Now reports: "The two SuperView 1, or Gaojing 1, satellites are flying in egg-shaped orbits ranging from 133 miles (214 kilometers) to 325 miles (524 kilometers) in altitude at an inclination of 97.6 degrees. The satellites would likely re-enter Earth's atmosphere within months in such a low orbit, and it was unclear late Wednesday whether the craft had enough propellant to raise their altitudes. The high-resolution Earth-observing platforms were supposed to go into a near-circular orbit around 300 miles (500 kilometers) above the planet to begin their eight-year missions collecting imagery for Siwei Star Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., a government-owned entity."
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
nope . That would be like US importing Mexican scientists.
The U.S. does import Mexican scientists. I work with a very talented one.
Re: (Score:2)
I work with a very talented one.
That was what I was trying to emphasize on ,
BTW Minguel de Icaza is also mexican .
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Remember how the United States imported German scientists to develop nuclear weapons and other such gizmos?
Why do I get the feeling that China brought in North Korean scientists?
The failure wasn't because of that, it was because they used guaranteed 100% genuine components from Aliexpress.
Bought from Alibaba listing (Score:5, Funny)
Long March 2D Rocket, genuine manufacture, capable of placing satellites in orbit. Minimum order quantity 2, maximum order 25 requires 2 week lead time. International shipping from Guangzhou.
Re: Bought from Alibaba listing (Score:5, Funny)
Is this for a new unit or re-conditioned ?
Someday the Chinese John Glenn will say, “I guess the question I'm asked the most often is: 'When you were sitting in that capsule listening to the count-down, how did you feel?' Well, the answer to that one is easy. I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of two million new and re-conditioned parts -- all built by the lowest bidder on a Chinese government contract out-sourced via Alibaba.”
Ftfy (Score:2)
Rocket Long March 2 composing genuine , flight of satellite egg duck spacing air.
Ftfy. That's Alibaba.
JOURNALISM (Score:5, Informative)
"flying in egg-shaped orbits "
Maybe you mean elliptical orbits.
You can't get an egg shape (one end wider than the other) without coniuing to use thrust
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Chinese are obsessed with food and cooking. Food analogies are common there.
Actually, not all eggs are wider on one end. Some are nearly elliptical. I'm actually fine with the egg comparison as an approximate description meant for a colloquial audience.
Re: (Score:1)
"That dress makes your endian look big"
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Not all eggs are wider on one end. Some turtle eggs are spherical.
Re:JOURNALISM (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I hate to say it, this bit of dumbing down is probably warranted.
elliptical (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Clearly, they wanted Trump to be able to tweet something snarky about it.
China saddle light launch failed. Egg foo young all over face! Not even in office and won space race! #MAGA
Re: (Score:2)
I thought this was supposed to be news for nerds?
Re: (Score:2)
HUH ! REALLY ! ON SLASHDOT ???
Jeez, where've YOU been vegetating the last half-dozen years ? ? ?
Re: JOURNALISM (Score:2)
I havent thought about it, but I feel like maybe such an orbit is possible at least temporarily if there are multiple influencing bodies synchronized exactly or the weight distribution of the thing being orbited was a certain way.
Re: (Score:2)
It's an ellipsoidal orbit because the shape of the orbit is an ellipsoid.
Ellipsoid: A three-dimensional figure whose plane sections are ellipses or circles.
Satellite orbits are planar, i.e., two-dimensional. No need for ellipsoids.
Lots of people want to try to appear smart.
. . . by unnecessarily complicating things.
Wow.
Naw, it's simply human nature. Welcome to humanity!
Re: (Score:2)
You can't get an egg shaped object with only two objects orbiting under gravity. With many bodies, however, things are far less clear. In addition, there is the effect of the atmosphere around the perigees. The orbits these things make won't be perfectly elliptical.
Re: (Score:3)
Journalism uses words people understand. People know what eggs look like but few know what elliptical means and even less know about coniuing thrust.
Journalism is targeted at 15 year old reading level or lower. This is how journalists are taught to write for a general public.
Re: (Score:2)
That's just insulting. When I was a 15 year old American boy, I knew damn well what an ellipse was. By 15, I think we were solving elliptical equations and not merely visualizing the "two pins and string" model. I also knew (because of my career of aspiring to be an astronaut since age 6) what an elliptic orbit was and the burns needed to get into and out of them.
Re: (Score:2)
That's just insulting. When I was a 15 year old American boy, I knew damn well what an ellipse was.
Not at all. The media wasn't written for you, it was written for everyone. That includes the lowest common denominator and I guarantee there are many 15 year olds as well as many adults who don't have a clue what an ellipse is, let alone solving elliptical equations.
If you want something to suit your brain, read the official materials not the ones that are presented to the general population, but don't feel insulted if not everything is written with you in mind.
Re: (Score:2)
If few people know what elliptical means than that is solid proof that the education system is a complete and utter failure.
Re: (Score:2)
You needed more proof?
Re: (Score:2)
I never said few. Most people probably do know what it is. "Most" doesn't reach 100% of a potential target audience.
Re: (Score:2)
You can: technically an egg-shape orbit is an orbit that, after a few revolutions, brings the orbiting object against the Earth surface, so that it shatters against the ground just like a egg.
Re: (Score:2)
"flying in egg-shaped orbits "
Maybe you mean elliptical orbits.
You can't get an egg shape (one end wider than the other) without coniuing to use thrust
Please remember that this 'summary' was written for slashdot users, many of whom don't know the difference between "apogee" and "perigee", let alone anything having to do with physics, orbits, thrust, reaction mass, or any other technically-oriented subject. Even referring to it as "egg-shaped" will baffle many of them.
They're too busy parroting shit about why PHP is so horrible while coding their new Flappy Bird app in Visual Basic and forgetting to sanitize their inputs, in between bouts of throwing racia
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure they tried that, but the engine didn't actually thrust because they put on the stack separator upside down and it's blocking the exhaust.
Wrong Orbit? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
I doubt it. More like "secret" orbit.
Yes, very likely to be the truth.
Re: (Score:1)
I doubt it. More like "secret" orbit.
You jest, but if anyone's inclined to take you seriously: it's unlikely. Observation (and spy) satellites need to be in a circular, sun-synchronous orbit. The second part is there, as they have the inclination of 97.6 degrees. However, an elliptical orbit with the apogee of 524 km tells us that the first (and possibly the only) circularization burn failed. A satellite in such an orbit is pretty much useless.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
close, but a good 40km deeper into the atmosphere at perigee, which will induce more drag, reducing apogee height. If this thing is already not able to thrust to their intended orbit, the drag will eventually pull it down deeper into the atmosphere where it will burn up.
The KH-11s probably have working thrusters that keep them in their orbits for their designed lifetimes, and there are probably replacements sitting in a hangar at Vandenberg AFB.
Very interesting (Score:1)
Not sure what the orbit is but it would be a good cover story for a short term surveillance satellite. Especially to observe other satellites.
Re: (Score:2)
Or even for a test to shut down/disable other satellites.
You'd think they'd stump up for a few (Score:3)
Egg shaped orbit? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
other orbital shapes with two bodies are possible.
circular orbit, unless you consider circle special case of ellipse where minor axis diameter equals major.
there are also the open orbits, parabolic and hyperbolic.
going for the really broad special cases, the other two conic sections are point and line which are also possible in two humorous circumstances.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyway, it was the egg shape that I objected to. Haven't gone back to read why I cared.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes in orbital mechanics books you can read about "closed" and "open" orbits.
A circle is two-dimensional object, sphere is 3D. A circle is not any type of sphere.
South China Orbit? (Score:1)
Now China is going to claim that they own low Earth orbit [worldaffairsjournal.org], and forbid anyone else to move through it. But we will continue to do so, as the claim is ridiculous.
Call them what they are (Score:2)
"The high-resolution Earth-observing platforms..."
In other words, "spy satellites specifically built for tracking people".
Ooops, space is hard... (Score:2)
Well despite all the jokes, admittedly doing anything in space is difficult and prone to failure even on systems that are "proven". Due to a programming failure, the European Mars lander ended up as a crater instead of landing and that's not the first Mars lander to mess up and probably not the last. Putting stuff into orbit sometimes doesn't even make it off the ground (SpaceX, Orbital Sciences).
Chinese intelligence must be very upset (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Please don't say that. The Chinese way of decommissioning satellites can have an unhappy ending. [wikipedia.org]
taking out the profit motive (Score:1)
The Chinese Method (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)