The Magellan spacecraft was inserted into an elliptical orbit around the planet Venus on August 10, 1990. A small aerodynamic force was applied later to the spacecraft for 730 consecutive orbits to lower the apoapsis of the orbit from 8500 km to 541 km. Atmospheric drag removed a maximum of 2 m/sec per orbit from the velocity at periapsis for a total delta-V of 1200 m/sec. This paper will discuss the thermal accommodation coefficient which was inferred from one of the four solar panel temperature measurements from the aerobraking pass through the atmosphere.
Measuring the Thermal Accommodation Coefficient while Aerobraking Magellan
25.07.1994
Preprint
Keine Angabe
Englisch
NTRS | 1992
|Magellan: Aerobraking at Venus.
Online Contents | 1994
|Magellan: Aerobraking at Venus
British Library Online Contents | 1994
|Magellan aerobraking periapse corridor design
NTRS | 1992
|