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gunsandrockets
Guest
Okay let us first assume the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle will work as advertised and likewise the Orion manned spacecraft.<br /><br />Normal operations has the Orion spacecraft placed into LEO by the Ares I, either to rendezvous with the ISS or with a lunar-bound mission-stack. The Orion service module has enough propellant to provide 5,000 fps of delta-V (about 1.7 km/s). Normally this much propellant is reserved for the Trans-Earth-Injection burn at the later stages of a lunar mission when the Orion departs low-lunar-orbit to return to Earth.<br /><br />But what if instead a fully fueled Orion spacecraft in LEO used it's propellant to increase the size of it's orbit around the Earth? How high of a circular orbit at 28 degrees inclination could an Orion spacecraft achieve, while still retaining enough propellant for a retro burn for Earth reentry?<br /><br />The Gemini 11 mission using the docked Agena target vehicle achieved an orbit with an apogee of over 1,300 km. How high could an Orion get? 5,500 km? More?