The Magellan spacecraft has been aerobraked into a 197 x 541 km near-circular orbit around Venus from which it is conducting a high-resolution gravity mapping mission. This was the first interplanetary aerobrake maneuver and involved flying the spacecraft through the upper reaches of the Venusian atmosphere 730 times over a 70 day period. Round-trip light-time varied from 9.57 to 18.83 minutes during this period. Navigation for this dynamic phase of the Magellan mission was planned and executed in the face of budget-driven down-sizing with all spacecraft safe modes disabled and a flight-team one-third the size of comparable interplanetary missions. Successful execution of this manuever using spacecraft hardware not designed to operate in a planetary atmosphere, demonstrated a practical cost-saving technique for both large and small future interplanetary missions.
Magellan aerobrake navigation
1995-03-01
Miscellaneous
No indication
English
Online Contents | 1995
|Navigating the Magellan Aerobrake
NTRS | 1993
|NTRS | 1990
|Aerobrake for the Centaur Aerobrake Flight Experiment
AIAA | 1988
|Aerobrake plasmadynamics - Macroscopic effects
AIAA | 1991
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