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A comment on Secret Space Plane Can’t Hide From Amateur Sleuths.

Re:Secret Space Plane Can’t Hide From Amateur Sleuths by MattyDub on Thursday March 31, 2011 @05:38PM (#2393826)
A previous mention on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1918368

In at least two articles about the X-37B, I've read about it changing orbit. But isn't that an energetically expensive operation? In a previous article (http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0824/Secret-Air-Force-...) the change seemed to be one of altitude/elevation (sorry if I'm using the wrong orbital mechanics terms ), rather than a plane change. But isn't that still relatively expensive, even with a Hohmann transfer or something? I can't imagine the X-37B can do very many orbit changes - can anyone provide more information on the physics behind this?

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Re:Secret Space Plane Can’t Hide From Amateur Sleuths by gvb on Thursday March 31, 2011 @09:22PM (#2394536)
Excellent question, fascinating answer: http://www.orbitermars.co.uk/stdorbit.htm

Trivia: this was the first spot googling "energy cost change orbital plane". I almost didn't click the link "Standard Orbit, Mr Sulu!" but was very glad I did. Bing had Wikipedia as the first spot, not nearly as engaging.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Secret Space Plane Can’t Hide From Amateur Sleuths by yread on Friday April 01, 2011 @01:30AM (#2395082)
I highly recommend the simulator Orbiter. Getting the space shuttle to LEO with this level of realism is hard
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