Porkchop plot
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Porkchop plot (also pork-chop plot) is a chart that depicts orbital trajectories for spacecraft. It is named for the characteristically porkchop-shaped contours that display combinations of launch date and arrival date characteristics of an interplanetary flight path for a given launch opportunity to Mars or any other planet.[1]
By examining the results of the porkchop plot, scientists can determine when launch opportunities exist to make use of special low-energy orbits needed to send payloads outwards using the lowest characteristic energy (C3), which allows for lower fuel usage and/or larger payloads.[2] A given contour, called a porkchop curve, represents constant C3, and the center of the porkchop the optimal minimum C3.
For the Voyager program, scientists at JPL plotted around 10,000 potential trajectories using porkchop plots, from which they selected around 100 that were optimal for the mission objectives. The plots allowed them to reduce or eliminate planetary encounters taking place over the Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays, and to plan the completion of the mission's primary goals before the end of the fiscal year 1981.[3]
References
- ^ Goldman, Elliot. "Launch Window Optimization: The 2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Mission", Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research. Accessed December 30, 2007.
- ^ "Porkchop" is the First Menu Item on a Trip to Mars, NASA. Accessed December 30, 2007.
- ^ Peter J. Westwick (2007). Into the Black: JPL and the American Space Program, 1976-2004. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300110758.
External links
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