Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket made history today (Sept. 5), becoming the first vehicle ever to reach orbit from European soil.
Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket made history today (Sept. 5), becoming the first vehicle ever to reach orbit from European soil.
Yes and no. For polar orbit you can’t get advantage of Earth’s rotation so you will need more energy. However in order to launch into a perfectly equatorial orbit you need to correct the inclination of the orbit to bring it to zero which takes a lot of energy (unless you launch from equator which Europe can do because of French Guiana). For polar orbits the location of the launch site doesn’t matter, you just wait for specific time of day and launch straight at north/south.
It does. The rotation perpendicular to your orbit is a problem. For that reason they go further north (or theoretically south) for polar orbits.