🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <j6v2=m#@rpi.edu> strider@clotho.acm.rpi.edu (Greg Moore) writes:
>I'd assume the latter, to safe fuel, and to allow it to "float by' if 
>something goes wrong.  With a Y+ translation if an 'up" thruster
>(to stop the Y+ movement) fails, you risk running the shuttle into the
>orbiter.  With the X+, if something fails, you just float on by...

The thruster systems are redundant; a single jet failure won't destroy
the ability to maneuver in a particular direction.

>>Leasat repair, the hardware was kept very simple and the astronauts'
>>arms did almost all the work.  (How quickly they forgot these lessons...)
>
>	I don't recall what Leasat was.  Could you give me some private email
>sometime to jog my memory?

(Easier to just include it here, in case anyone else is wondering...)  That
was the "Frisbee launched" satellite, aka Syncom, which couldn't light its
boost motor after deployment from an earlier shuttle mission.

>	It seems like a good argument for satellite manufacturers to include
>a grapple point...

If memory serves, the head of Intelsat has said "henceforth we put grapple
fixtures on our satellites".  Not very likely that there'll be any use for
one any time soon, but it sure does save a lot of hassle when the occasion
does arise.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry