July 1963 : “ Ever seek to shoot a slow - fly duck’s egg while standing rigidly on a fast circumvolve platform , and with a gunman that uses hummer which swerve 90 ° while in flight ? ”
This dubiousness from the July 1963 issue of Lab - Oratory is too perfect to not keep integral . While most of us would need to serve a resounding no , that ’s the best metaphor I ’ve hear for explain the complexity of designing spacecraft trajectories .
In 1967 , NASA built a trajectory design model during the mission ontogeny of the Mariner flybys to help planner illustrate the expect route of the spacecraft . This allowed them to predict not just the trajectory of Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 , but also the orientation of the planet . This helped them nail the window of opportunity for scientific legal instrument and television camera to collect data during the flyby .
Modern flight preparation rely hard on information processing system - generated plots and animations , allowing for thecomplex decade - long orbital saltation of the Cassini spacecraft around Saturn and its moonsand theincredible precision of the MAVEN arrival at Mars .
Image credit:NASA/JPL
reach the author at[email protected]or watch over her at@MikaMcKinnon .
ballistic capsule
Daily Newsletter
Get the expert tech , science , and culture news in your inbox daily .
News from the future tense , save to your present tense .
You May Also Like
