Earth orbit rendezvous

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Gemini 7 1965 photographed by Gemini 6 during the Earth orbit rendezvous.

The Earth orbit rendezvous ( EOR ) is a form of space travel rendezvous for carrying out outward and return flights between the earth and other celestial bodies. It could be used, for example, to assemble translunar spacecraft in low-earth orbit, possibly also to refuel and only then to fly to the moon. EORs were considered for NASA's Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s, and ultimately discarded in favor of the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR), largely because the latter did not require a spaceship to both land on the moon and land on Earth could. Three decades later, it was to be used for the Constellation program until the program was discontinued in October 2010.

Earth orbit rendezvous in the Gemini program

A rendezvous with guided spaceships was first held in December 1965 with Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 . The first rendezvous with coupling took place through Gemini 8 , who docked with an Agena Target Vehicle (ATV) in March 1966 . Couplings of this type in orbit were carried out on all subsequent Gemini missions and with Apollo 9 .

Apollo

In 1961, it was estimated that it would take ten Saturn C-1 launches to make a moon flight from Earth orbit

The EOR proposal for Apollo was to use a series of small rockets half the size of a Saturn V to bring various components of a spaceship to the moon. Project Gemini experiments, which included docking with the Agena target vehicle, were developed in part to test the feasibility of this program.

Constellation

The EOR method for the Constellation program as an Earth Departure Stage (EDS) and for the Altair lander (LSAM), which were to be brought into near-Earth orbit on the Ares V rocket, was revived . The EDS and Altair would have met with the separately launched Orion (CEV) . Once in low-earth orbit, the three would have flown to the moon and the Orion / Altair combination would have flown a lunar orbit rendezvous maneuver.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Low earth orbit rendezvous strategy for lunar missions
  2. ^ Lunar Orbit Rendezvous and the Apollo Program
  3. ^ John F. Connolly: Constellation Program Overview , October 2006
  4. ^ Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft . NASA . 1979. Archived from the original on November 18, 2004. Retrieved April 27, 2007.