Mission Profile of Targeted Splashdown for Space Station Mir

Abstract

The largest man-made object to reenter Earth's atmosphere is Russia's Space Station Mir, which was deorbited on 23 March 2001. The major requirements and constraints of the mission, propulsion options, and attitude systems are described. The mission pro le includes two phases. The rst phase is a low-thrust transfer to a prereentry orbit after the Mir orbit has decreased to a very low altitude, and the second phase is a nal transfer with a maximum possible thrust-to-weight ratio from the prereentry orbit to a reentry trajectory. The problems of the mission pro le for a targeted splashdown in a speci ed region of the Paci c Ocean east of Australia are considered. Two possible mission pro les were evaluated. The results of actual deorbit burn sequence and Mir reentry trajectory are discussed as well as brief description of contingency situations. Nomenclature H= orbit altitude over oblate Earth, km P = thrust force, N T = kinetic energy, kg-m 2 /s 2 1V = velocity increment, m/s Subscripts max = maximum magnitude min = minimum magnitude 6 = summarized magnitude

Drag Deorbit Device: A New Standard Reentry Actuator for CubeSats

“…NASA-STD-8719.14A mandates that any spacecraft utilizing controlled re-entry techniques must land 370 km away from land and that the probability of targeting failure multiplied by the chance of human casualty due to the uncontrolled re-entry be less than 1 in 10,000 [4]. Spacecraft containing thrusters can perform an impulsive de-orbit burn to ensure that their debris lands away from populated areas, as was the case with the Delta IV upper stages [15] and the Mir space station [16]. However, a failure of the propulsion system can result in uncontrolled re-entry and pose a significant hazard to persons or property on the ground, such as when Skylab fell over Australia in 1979 and generated a debris field in the Australian Outback [17].…”