Re:SpaceX launches first U.S. national security space mission
by khuey on Monday December 24, 2018 @04:32PM
(#18754383)
You can do both of those. NRO missions have launched out of Kennedy to the northeast (e.g. NROL-76) and Vandenberg to the southwest (e.g. NROL-25).
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Re:SpaceX launches first U.S. national security space mission
by njarboe on Monday December 24, 2018 @06:29PM
(#18754872)
According to bisby at the head of this thread, one of the reasons that SpaceX did not recover the booster is that the rocket had to enter an inclined orbit. Maybe it did launch in the direction for an inclined orbit and used a little extra fuel, like a polar orbit does, due to the fact that you don't have all the speed of the spinning earth adding to your orbital velocity. I didn't know that the spinning Earth speed was a significant factor on payload to orbit of rockets.