Small satellite Stella

1994/01/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Geologia

Three minutes after the orbit of the Spot 3 satellite, the small Stella satellite began to orbit on 26 September. It is a kind of ball of 24 centimeters of diameter, more specifically the icosahedron, with three laser reflectors each of its twenty faces. This satellite is itself a mere passive, just like the Starlette launched in 1975 or the North American Lageos. Some stations spread all over the world continue with an accuracy of centimeters.

Despite its small size, it has a mass of depleted uranium inside and weighs 48 kilos. It should have as much density as possible for the resistance to the atmosphere to be low. It is true that the satellite is 800 kilometers from Earth and that the atmosphere is very weak, but it can somewhat change the orbit of the satellite and take advantage of the essay. In order to produce a completely accurate gravitational map of the Earth, irregularities in the orbit should only reflect the distribution of masses within the Earth. Once this map has been made, movements around the Earth can be perfectly simulated.