Moon Images By SMART-1 |
Moon Images By SMART-1 |
Jan 20 2005, 02:45 PM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 470 Joined: 24-March 04 From: Finland Member No.: 63 |
SMART-1 is approaching its operational orbit. ESA has released some images of the Moon on this page:
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=36358 -------------------- Antti Kuosmanen
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Guest_DonPMitchell_* |
Jun 2 2006, 11:25 PM
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#2
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Guests |
I'm waiting for the altimetry data from LRO! It's remarkable that we have better data for Mars than we do for the Moon. How good will the SMART images be, and what will the total coverage be? How will it compare to the Clementine mapping?
To me, the intertesting thing about SMART-1 was the ion propulsion. It was the second spacecraft to really use ion engines to get somewhere. Deep Space-1 used an American electrostatic ion engine, SMART-1 uses a Russian Hall-effect engine. The SPD engines (statzionariykh plazmennykh dvigatelyakh )were pioneered by OKB Fakel in the early 1970s, used for station keeping of Meteor and Yamal satellites. Their most powerful engines can produce up to 80 gram-force of thrust and a specific impulse of 3000 sec. That's almost 10 times more efficiency than chemical rocket engines (whcih max out around 400 sec for the best of them). The Phobos-Grunt mission will contain 3 of the SPD-140 engines. Keeping my fingers crossed that mission will really happen (and actually work). |
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