🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1480@xn.LL.MIT.EDU> wjc@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (Bill Chiarchiaro) writes:
>I checked the NASA Satellite Situation Report, Vol. 28, No. 4, Dec.
>31, 1988 for non-booster Apollo items still in orbit...

Does it state the basis for assuming this hardware is still in orbit?
I greatly doubt that it is possible to track the things in lunar orbit;
that's difficult even in Clarke orbit unless there's a transponder aboard.

>Glaringly absent, however, was any listing of the Apollo 13 LM.
>According to one text I have, that LM was never staged (the ascent and
>descent stages were kept together) and was jettisoned 18,000 km from
>earth.

Right.  It went into the Pacific as the CM reentered.  There wasn't any
alternative, since the LM was needed to maneuver the CM into a proper
reentry trajectory with the SM dead.
-- 
$10 million equals 18 PM       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
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