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Russia has now built a launch site inside Russia (Vostochny Cosmodrome), in its far east. Although they don't seem to be actually using it that much at the mome
by fredoralive 4y ago
Russia has now built a launch site inside Russia (Vostochny Cosmodrome), in its far east. Although they don't seem to be actually using it that much at the moment, they wouldn't be cut off from space.
- selimthegrim 4y agoI think the trajectories from there are nowhere as good as Baikonur
- smcin 4y agoBaikonur is 45.62° N, 63.31° E Vostochny Cosmodrome, (Tsiolkovsky, Amur Oblast) is 51.85° N, 128.35° E. 550 miles west of Sakhalin Island and the Sea of Japan.
- pestatije 4y ago51° N is like London...not the best latitude for launching to space
- rob74 4y agoIt's definitely not optimal, but GP probably wanted to highlight that it's not much worse than Baikonur (45°), at least when you compare it to Cape Canaveral (28°) or Kourou (5°). Actually, Roskosmos was cooperating with ESA to launch some of their rockets from Kourou, but of course since the Ukraine attack that is suspended (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-suspends-cooperation-with-europe-space-launches-french-guiana-2022-02-26/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-suspends-coopera...)
- maxerickson 4y agoYeah, most of the continental US is better than 45°.
- _joel 4y agoGot to love those dog-leg manouevres and a dashing of extra fuel :)
- sorenjan 4y agoI don't know anything about space launches, how come the first orbital launch site in mainland Europe is in Esrange in northern Sweden, latitude 67° N? Are different latitudes good for different trajectories?
- Robotbeat 4y agoYou’re right. 45.6deg vs 51.8deg N. The eastward boost you get from the earths rotation is just: 2 * pi * cos(latitude)/day so the difference is: 2 * pi * r_Earth*(cos(45.2deg)-cos(51.8deg))/day = 40m/s. Which doesn’t sound like a lot but can add up. I compared Plesetsk (Russia) vs Baikonur (Kazakhstan) in the Silverbird Astronautics calculator for Soyuz v2-1B using 3.3m fairing and without Fregat, and I got 1552kg estimated payload to escape for Plesetsk and 1665kg for Baikonur. 7% performance hit to high energy trajectories. http://www.silverbirdastronautics.com/LVperform.html http://www.silverbirdastronautics.com/LVperform.html Plesetsk is more established than V, but is 63deg latitude.
- latchkey 4y agoI never considered this and your response made me ask google the question: "Where is the best place to launch a vehicle?" "The land at the equator is moving 1670 km per hour, and land halfway to the pole is only moving 1180 km per hour, so launching from the equator makes the spacecraft move almost 500 km/hour faster once it is launched." Neat, thanks for such an interesting answer.
- jareklupinski 4y agowondering if there is an inhabited planet somewhere out there much more optimized for launching spacecraft with its equatorial denizens barely hanging on to its surface
- s1artibartfast 4y agoSize and mass are the other big factors.
- Symbiote 4y agoKourou, at 5° North, is very nicely positioned.
- hadlock 4y agoYeah it's no accident SpaceX built their test launch facility on the beach in Texas, less than 10 miles from the southernmost point in Texas. Brownsville is about 20 miles away and is a natural, true deepwater port which is also helpful, but primary reason was to get as close to the equator as possible while still being on the US mainland. You can throw about 9% more mass into orbit on the equator than from NYC. Florida coastal property is mostly built out and southern Texas is mostly vacant + has a very favorable business climate and lax (state-level) environmental regulations which doesn't hurt either.