Anything ever become of HGS 1?

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mikejz

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I was woundering: i was thinking about HGS 1--a Com sat that had the 4th stage fail. Hughes used a lunar gravity assists to bring it to GEO with only that Sats onboard propellent. <br /><br />I was wondering, did this represent a way to get GEO satellites to there intented orbit with less Delta-V in normal (non stage failure) launches. If it does, is there any reason that this method is not being used for other com sats?
 
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vogon13

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Risk to solar panels from solar radiation, also. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>
 
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najab

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Yes, the satellite was sucessfully delivered into geostationary orbit. They actually sent it around the Moon twice, if memory serves correct, the second loop was to reduce the orbital inclination. After the manouvers the inclination was high (about 5 degrees) but was slowly decreasing with each orbit. I know that they did offer trans-Atlantic capacity on the satellite (discounted due to the inclined orbit), but I don't know if there were any takers. Recall that the bottom dropped out of the comsat business around that time.
 
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