Finding Lm3(Spider)
Recently I discovered that in March of 1969, when the lunar module ascent stage, “Spider” was released during the Apollo 9 Earth orbital mission, the ascent engine was commanded to burn to fuel depletion. This resulted in an orbit of 6,934.4 × 230.6 km. That orbit lasted until the ascent stage re-entered and burned up on 23 October 1981. Since the Space Shuttle Columbia first flew on 12 April 1981, that means that, hypothetically, the Space Shuttle could have been dispatched to rendezous (and possibly capture) Spider. These are a series of scenarios utilizing the Shuttle Fleet and AMSO. Both addons must be in the same Orbiter installation, Orbiter 2010, to work properly. The scenarios are located in the Scenario folder “Finding LM3(Spider)”. There is a launch scenario on 13 October 1981 and a stationkeeping scenario on 14 October 1981. Using the RPOP MFD, a flyaround is possible. The scenarios are based upon actual orbital elements for Spider from October 1981. Spider was NORAD catalog number 03771.
