Oribital inclination to the equator determines the maximum north/south extremes of the orbit itself. Inclination is mission-specific. Has absolutely no effect on physical stress on the spacecraft structure. C. --- Brent Watson <brentjwatson@yahoo.com> wrote:
I don't think the re-entry path was atypical. The shuttle has passed over s. Utah several times for landing at Kennedy. This was the second time I have seen it, and I believe Patrick has seen it three times now. (Patrick?) The path is whatever it is depending on where in the earth/orbit relation the orbiter is when it de-orbits. I have looked at many re-entry tracks, and they are not the same.
Brent
--- Dale Hooper <Dale.Hooper@sdl.usu.edu> wrote:
There is something that I have been really curious about that I haven't seen mentioned (please forgive me if I somehow just missed it). We know that the shuttle was following an atypical reentry track - because we were able to observe it over southern Utah. I'm wondering if this reentry profile presents times when there are greater stresses on the orbiter than a typical reentry profile? I.e., more severe banking that might overly stress an already somewhat damaged wing; which wouldn't have caused a failure in a more typical reentry profile.
Certainly, this wouldn't be a root cause - but might be a contributing factor. Obviously, I've entered into second tier speculation. <g>
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com
http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
__________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day http://shopping.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com
http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day http://shopping.yahoo.com