5 ms·
Wouldn't the mass change cause some kind of detectable change in the satellite's trajectory over time?
by yetanotherloser 4y ago
Wouldn't the mass change cause some kind of detectable change in the satellite's trajectory over time?
- ceejayoz 4y agoI don't think anything particularly detectable; they're so outweighed by the planet they're orbiting that the barycenter doesn't move measurably. (To be clear, I'd imagine they're only doing the inspection thing right now, but I do suspect they're at least tinkering with on-orbit capture, refueling, disabling etc. with an arm.)
- dmurray 4y agoWhat if your satellite did some more manoeuvres for station keeping, wouldn't you notice the mass difference then?
- lmm 4y agoMaybe. The mass of an explosive could be pretty small compared to the mass of a satellite. And even if you do notice that your (secret military) satellite is slightly heavier than the spec says, what would you do about it?
- matthewdgreen 4y agoHow expensive is it to attach a couple of space-rated external cameras to a modern satellite? This wouldn’t eliminate the threat but it would certainly remove the uncertainty. Presumably once you recognized the threat, then defending against it couldn’t be the hardest problem to solve.
- dylan604 4y agoIt would not need to be very big mine though would it? A grenade would probably be just fine to eliminate the satellite from being useful. Something that small means it could carry a lot of ammo
- usrusr 4y agoJust something to put the satellite in a spin that is beyond what attitude control can recover from. Could be really tiny.
- simne 4y agoHigh energy elementary particle? ;)
- simne 4y ago> A grenade would probably be just fine to eliminate the satellite from being useful Sure, but if You are lucky or smart enough, to use it close enough. For example Soviet satellite-interceptors spent few years and made few attempts (each time with bigger explosive), before achieve enough cloud density .