re hst servicing mission scheduled for days in article apr stsci edu hathaway stsci edu writes after all the space walking they are going to re boost the hst s orbit i think right now it s sitting at miles up they would like i don t know the exact orbit numbers as ben says this re boost idea is all news to us here do you know something we don t please supply a source it would be nice for the schedulers of observations to know where the thing is going to be these altitude numbers are also way off my best source has minimum st altitude in the pmdb is kilometers maximum st altitude in the pmdb is kilometers delta st altitude in the pmdb is kilometers pmdb is proposal management data base used to schedule observations i am sure your numbers are far better then mine as i said above i don t have exact numbers in order to perform the re boost of the hst the oms engines will be fired for a long period now the shuttle is a heavy thing the hst isn t light either the amount of oms fuel needed to fly both up is substantial a small booster carried up and used to boost hst on it s own will weigh significantly less then the oms fuel required to boost both hst and shuttle for a given orbital change could you supply some calculations you might check some recent postings that explained that a small booster as suggested does not now exist so comparing the mass of something that doesn t exist to the mass of the oms fuel seems impossible the contamination threat also remains how different would the contamination threat of a small manuevering tug be from that of the shuttle and it s oms engines i know that no small manuevering tug exists but maybe one could soup up a bus does anyone out there have the de clasified specs on hte bus would it be able to provide enough control force to balance the hst and still have the rocket thrust to hurl her into a decent high orbit or the hst could even get placed into some sort of medium orbit the reason they want a high orbit is less antenna pointing and longer drag life longer drag life i can understand but could you explain the antenna pointing sorry that should be intrument pointing whatever it is the problem in the tilt array is a big constraint on hst ops tell me about it although the arrays can be and are moved perfectly well utilizing the second electronics box getting them both working is much desireable so as to reclaim redundancy plus if the second box gets fritzy you could be in shitter ville real fast i don t mean to jump on you helpful suggestions are always welcome and we all know the more ideas the better but i do want the true situation to be described clearly and correctly lest some get confused regards wm hathaway the problem is no one seems to have the exact numbers when the mission was planned originally at spacewalks and astronauts there was enormous concern over the mass margins for the flight they have now planned for eva s an day mission and have reserve eva s and an emergency eva obviously that is coming from somewhere my guess is the oms burn fuel or re boost margin i just figured if goldin wants to really prove out faster cheaper better have some of the whiz kids slap together an expendable space manuevering tug out of a bus and use that for the re boost it has to be better then using the discovery as a tow truck pat
