NASA has three smartphones orbiting the earth as mini-satellites

Re:NASA has three smartphones orbiting the earth as mini-sat... by InclinedPlane on Friday April 26, 2013 @04:52PM (#5615405)

I don't know that I'd describe the launch as "neat". I'm searching for the right word to describe it... I guess maybe.... "nominal".

Anyway, almost all modern rockets don't use fins. They steer using thrust vectoring and attitude control thrusters.

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Re:NASA has three smartphones orbiting the earth as mini-sat... by gngeal on Friday April 26, 2013 @05:06PM (#5615490)

Anyway, almost all modern rockets don't use fins.

...they don't start working until you're fast enough (quite high above the ramp, which is a sensitive area where you really need it) and they stop working once you leave the atmosphere (which is all too soon for an orbital carrier). Why bother with them?

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Re:NASA has three smartphones orbiting the earth as mini-sat... by Retric on Friday April 26, 2013 @05:19PM (#5615580)

There generally on the bottom stage so they don't reach Anything close to orbit. But what there really useful for is dampening rotations which is hard to fix with a thrust vectoring system.

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Re:NASA has three smartphones orbiting the earth as mini-sat... by pjkundert on Friday April 26, 2013 @06:08PM (#5615784)

Only on single engine stages; with 2 or more engines, damping rotation is no problem.

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