[ExI] De-Orbiting Gold

spike spike66 at att.net
Sun May 20 04:33:43 UTC 2012



-----Original Message-----
From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] 

>...  That one time when we returned LDEF from orbit in 1990, which was
almost 12000 kg, that was perhaps the scariest thing we ever did with the
shuttle...spike


As soon as I sent this, I thought something was wrong with it.  I realized
the deployment mass of LDEF was way higher than its reentry mass.  Reentry
mass was about 3625 kg.  So disregard previous as wildly optimistic.  The
12000kg was the highest payload the shuttle could theoretically reenter, but
noooobody wanted to try it, nobody.  The LDEF's 4 tons was too much for the
comfort zone.

spike




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