Re: Station-building: a vessel proposal

[David Henderson <orbiter@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 6 Dec 2002, Orbital Mods wrote:

> ObiWan is right about the russian FSB ferry; there's yet another use for a
> SpaceTug such as Dragonfly. If you remember the recent Proton fiasco,
> there's a really expensive satellite that separated from the top Proton
> stage too early and is now adrift in low earth orbit instead of the planned
> geostationary orbit. While a shuttle mission to pick it and send it to
> geosync by whatever means would be prohibitively expensive, a tug (either
> manned or remotely controlled) docked at ISS would be an inexpensive way to
> recover "lost" satellites. I'm nearly sure we'll get to see such a thing in
> the near future.

Problem is, doesn't the Dragonfly have no main thruster? I thought it was
a purely RCS driven craft, so it can't change orbit to go and get another
satellite, merely assemble parts already in place.

TBH, I don't really see the need for it, either, but it's just a bit of
fun to play with, no?

-- 
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David.                             Work (Direct/Vmail): 020 8898 6565x38
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