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Rockets launched from the Soyuz launch site in Kazakhstan cannot reach orbits with an inclination of 39 degrees so there's no way that they could have reached t
by Mvandenbergh 13y ago
Rockets launched from the Soyuz launch site in Kazakhstan cannot reach orbits with an inclination of 39 degrees so there's no way that they could have reached the orbiter from there.
An Ariane launch from French Guiana could have worked and there was a rocket there that launched a satellite shortly afterwards but that would have required fabricating a supply vehicle with automatic guidance and navigation capable of docking to the orbiter by itself. (Ignoring for the moment that the orbiter didn't even have an external airlock with docking collar installed.)
- avmich 13y agoProton rocket with DM booster and Zond - a version of Soyuz spacecraft, without the orbital module - was launched multiple times in 1960s. DM adds about 3 km/s deltaV. Baikonur latitude is 46N, to get to 39N one needs to change orbital plane for 7 degrees, sin(7)*8 km/s is about 1 km/s. So there could be some options there.
- tanzam75 13y agoIf you launch from Baikonur directly into a 46° orbit, you will drop spent rocket stages on China. That is why the Russians launch into a 51° orbit, even though their launch site is at 46°. With a Proton, you have enough delta-v to launch into 51° and then make a change of plane to 39°. But the Russians don't just have three Protons and three Soyuzes sitting around, ready to launch. They have to schedule these things. The Soyuz is normally not launched on a Proton these days -- not since the 1970s. They'd have to jury-rig a bunch of things. It would not necessarily have been safer than a NASA Shuttle rescue.