18 Jun 2009, 10:16 UTC (0 views)
The final leg of Planck's journey has begun. On 17th June it successfully executed a 3-hour "touch-up" manoeuvre, which completes the mid-course correction. A couple of weeks previously, a much larger 46-hour burn was performed. This touch-up manoeuvre simply corrects for any slight misalignment after that burn. These misalignments are inevitable, and indeed expected, with such complicated procedures, and are primarily caused by tiny variations in the way the thrusters work
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