60 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
60 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: CORNET/HOAGLAND/MOON FILE: UFO2397
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Ä Area: UFO ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
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Msg#: 5794 Date: 08-27-94 21:59
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From: Richard Cassera Read: Yes Replied: No
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To: Bob Sweeney Mark:
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Subj: CORNET/HOAGLAND/MOON
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ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
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I asked Dean Bakeris (bakeris@nrlvax.nrl.navy.mil), who works on
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Clementine at the Naval Research Laboratory, for a status report on
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the unfortunate spacecraft.
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You'll recall that after a successful mission orbiting the Moon for a
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couple of months, sending back 1.5 million images and a bunch of
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other data, Clementine left lunar orbit and began an Earth swingby.
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On 9 May a computer failure caused her to use up all her
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attitude-control propellant and left her spinning at a high rate.
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The accident made impossible the planned excursion to fly by the
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asteroid Geographos in August.
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Controllers attempted to change the orbit and spin rate with a series
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of maneuvers in late May. With a lot of luck, they hoped to keep
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Clementine orbiting Earth rather than sailing off into a heliocentric
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orbit.
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Here's what Dean has to say-- not good news:
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Clementine is pretty much a goner. Soon after the maneuvers to
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setup for the double lunar swingby, the s/c started losing power
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quickly despite successful efforts to move the solar panels to a
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more favorable position for sun soak. The s/c eventually went into
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undervoltage and most systems shut down automatically. The battery
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temperature is very low (<-5 C). Most power is being drawn
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directly off the solar panels by the transmitter which was left
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on. Many attempts have been made to shut the transmitter off with
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none being successful.
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The current orbit is not the desired one. The second lunar swingby
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was close to what we had wanted but we were unable to perform a
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correction maneuver before the swingby occurred due to the
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undervoltage condition. At this time, no maneuvers can be
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performed. On about July 20th, the s/c will be perturbed by the
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moon enough that it will leave its loose Earth orbit and enter a
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heliocentric orbit.
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Well, it was fun while it lasted. Let's do something like this again,
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real soon!
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---EOF
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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********************************************** |