B
bobw
Guest
I have been looking for a while now and haven't found an answer. It is dumb but I have been wondering if Smart-1 got up to escape velocity and when? I know that in an elliptical orbit an object sweeps out equal areas in equal times making it fast at perigee and slow at apogee. I was thinking that it got up to ~25000 mi/hr on it's last close approach to earth, but when I look at the charts of its orbits it seems that the perigee has been getting higher and higher; the orbit looks almost circular now which would make the change in velocity during the orbit small(er). I can't figgure out why, if it got to escape velocity a long time ago, it is still spiraling out; and I can't figgure out how they are going to slow it down now if it is going really fast. <br /><br />I've never done anything but simple orbital calculations (circular) so this spiral thing has my head spinning. Can anybody help me out? I'm confused. How fast does Smart-1 go? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>