An orbital spacecraft launch will send it half an orbit later to the other side of the globe, as Mr. Popovkin observes. Get a globe and take a look — on the other side from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (49N, 63E) is off coast of Patagonia, in Argentina (49S, 63W).
Phobos-Grunt could not have passed anywhere near US territory in its first orbit.
Oops, antipodes of 49N, 63E is not 49S, 63W as I posted earlier. It’s 49S, 117W, in the southeast Pacific, off the coast of southern Chile. Conclusion still valid: Phobos-Grunt could not have passed anywhere near US territory in its first orbit.
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An orbital spacecraft launch will send it half an orbit later to the other side of the globe, as Mr. Popovkin observes. Get a globe and take a look — on the other side from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (49N, 63E) is off coast of Patagonia, in Argentina (49S, 63W).
Phobos-Grunt could not have passed anywhere near US territory in its first orbit.
Oops, antipodes of 49N, 63E is not 49S, 63W as I posted earlier. It’s 49S, 117W, in the southeast Pacific, off the coast of southern Chile. Conclusion still valid: Phobos-Grunt could not have passed anywhere near US territory in its first orbit.