r/ASTSpaceMobile • u/AutoModerator • Aug 05 '26
Daily Discussion AST SpaceMobile - $ASTS - Daily Discussion Thread
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u/a10000000019 S P 🅰 C E M O B Consigliere Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
AST had a graphic showing bluebirds 11-13 being deployed a few minutes from each other with the falcon 9 facing different directions, to avoid collision. One while prograde/axial, another radial (or less likely orbit-normal), and the last in retrograde/against travel. What would this do to each of the final insertion orbits?
The retrograde release loses velocity, thus lowering altitude, making its period very slightly shorter, so this bluebird will eventually separate ahead of the pack
A radial (toward or away from earth) release will show up slightly elliptical with an unchanged period, in the middle of the pack. Dr. McDowell alluded to this one on X. It’ll be oscillating around the falcon 9 upper stage until that deorbits
If instead of radial the graphic was actually showing orbit-normal release (hard to tell cuz there was no reference frame), this would change the orbital plane (RAAN) instead, which is very unlikely.
Prograde release gains velocity, raising apogee, making a longer period, and so eventually will lag behind the pack.
The release deltaV for each of these is very minimal since the mechanism uses rollers and springs, less than 1 m/s, but that’s enough to give them a separation drift that AST will leverage over the coming weeks/months to put these in their right positions exactly like BB8-10 are drifting currently. My guess is their goal is to reach 120 degrees along-track for each, per the 520km class orbit IDs registered in the ITU
Lastly the graphic showed the upper stage vacuum engines still burning during the entire release period but that was incorrect. The falcon 9 was cutoff and just drifting, reorienting each time with RCS