You jogged my memory Chris about the later case, the use of positioning
propellant to insert into a useful orbit.
FYI, the testing I engaged in did not find a smoking gun failure point but
the front running theory based on empirical ground test
data was the Viton impregnated Kevlar nozzle burst disc shot out
asymmetrically and impacted the inside of the C/C exit cone
broke/fractured it. That should of resulted in wild side thrust loads
throwing the payload out of control,permanently. Only ground
radar might verify, not sure.
On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 6:20 AM Chris Jones <clj@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 04/28/20 7:43 AM, Craig Fink wrote:
IUS failed at orbital insertion, circa ~1986
I was Guidance Support in the backroom for the rescue mission.
Now this failure was a fun one. After, these two solids failed to
raise the two satellites into higher orbits.
You are conflating several incidents. As I mentioned in my previous
mail, the two separate communication satellites were stranded by two
separate Star motor failures on two PAM-D stages (one on each). They
were later retrieved and resold and relaunched (insurance company money
paid some of that cost). The IUS failure stranded the first TDRS
satellite in an orbit intermediate between LEO and GSO; there was no
rendezvous with that bird as it was too high. It got to GSO using its
onboard propellant at the cost of a shortened mission.
