Trajectories and orbital maneuvers for the ISEE-3/ICE comet missionThe ISEE-3/ICE spacecraft, (launched in 1978), and expected to obtain the first measurements of comet Giacobinni-Zinner in September 1985, has undertaken a combination of propulsive maneuvers, lunar swing-bys, and solar perturbations to produce its present trajectory profile. ISEE-3 is a drum-shaped, spin-stabilized spacecraft equipped with a redundant pair of high-resolution sun sensors, a medium-gain S-band antenna, a hydrazine propulsion system and a science experiment payload. After being placed into a sun-earth libration halo orbit in late 1978, ISEE-3 was retargeted to the geomagnetotail in mid-1982 and became the first spacecraft to explore the geomagnetic tail between 80 and 237 earth radii in 1983. These types of maneuvers may prove important for future scientific missions planned as follow-ons to ISEE-3/ICE, such as a joint NASA/ISAS project spacecraft scheduled for Shuttle launch in 1991, and a possible encounter with two comets in 1996 anad 1998.
Document ID
19840058567
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Farquhar, R. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Muhonen, D. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Church, L. C. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)