Traffic Jam at Canaveral
On 04-Oct-20 1:04 am, David Spain wrote:
Sylvia Else writes:
The launch time determines the orbital plane. Unless a mission is insensitive
to that there's little option but to wait until until the narrow window
reopens. A small amount of plane change after launch is possible, but it
consumes fuel
Yes that makes perfect sense. So the question remains, what is a
sustainable launch cadence from a single point of departure? Narrow
launch windows don't help if the hardware has reliability
problems. Which of course as you rightly point out in many cases are
necessary. Does that argue for multiple launch sites and more staggered
launch slots? Again we don't really know, we've never experienced this
level of traffic before. It will all be very interesting to see how this
unfolds.
Dave
Perhaps this is where a craft like Skylon will come back into its own,
despite SpaceX eating into its reusable economics, such that Reaction
Engines are no longer promoting it (at least, not much). It has the same
orbital plane constraints, but only has to occupy the launch site (a
runway, in its case) for a short period, so if a launch has to be
scrubbed, it can be towed away until the next window opens, while other
missions are handled.
Sylvia.
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