Project Elara Orbital Profile
Launch and Range
- Launch site and name and coordinates (we probably won’t know this for a while)
- Launch window (we also probably won’t know this for a while)
- Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport is likely launch location
- Firefly and RocketLab both operate at Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport
Injection / Separation Orbit
- Orbit type
- Perigee altitude
- Apogee altitude
- Semi-major axis
- Eccentricity
- Inclination
Target Orbit
- Target longitude
- Target altitude
- Target inclination
- Allowed eccentricity
Spacecraft Specifications
- Wet mass
- Dry mass
- Mass of usable propellant
- Center of mass
- Center of pressure
- General dimensions
Delta-V
- Required Delta-V
- Reaction control system
- Contingency margin
- Station keeping (this we want to minimize as much as possible, so as little as possible)
Transfer Profile
- What is our transfer strategy
- Location of burns
How will we point the mirror towards the sun
- Rotation wheel
Calm sea for barge or can be stationary
- Mediterranean (Deal with ESA, Europe)
- Sargasso Sea
- Bay Area (close NASA, West Coast increased costs)
- Atolls
- Uninhabited Island
- Of of New York
- Lots of uninhabited islands off New York
- Issue: Many islands are strictly for recreational use, owned privately or by the state, or house endangered species
- Consideration: New York, as a state, doesn’t have a lot of launch sites due to its location in the northeast
- Many big rocket launching sites are situated further west
- Islands more west could be worth looking into, although I predict that the same issues may pop up
- There exists certain islands specifically for launching spacecraft
- Ex: Omelek Island, Wallops Island
- Wallops Island has supported the launch of spacecraft from other Universities; we mentioned before that looking into receiving funding from NASA could be an option, also could be an option to see if Wallops can be used to support Elara’s launch
- Lagoons