Alaskan spaceport to host secretive commercial launch

Space News ^ | 3/20/2018 | Jeff Foust

[BradyLS]

Launches from Canaveral boost a rocket ~1,550km/hr in the direction of the earth’s rotation. Launches from Juneau are boosted ~900km/hr. A bit better than half the added boost from a Florida site (which itself is almost as good as an equatorial launch, despite difference in latitude). Launches from Baikanour receive an assist of ~1,250 km/hr and that site is still in regular use.

All to say that while a launch from Alaska isn’t ideal, it still offers a welcome assist.

[Paal Gulli]

Even Jules Verne recognized the advantages of an equatorial launch. In "From the Earth to the Moon," first published in 1865, he gave a lat-long for the launch site which happens to be in modern North Port, Florida, 135 miles SW of Cape Canaveral.

...The only advantage of a high-latitude launch site is if one has clients who want their satellites put into polar, near polar, or retrograde orbits.

Retrograde? Why on earth would anybody want to launch rockets from Alaska headed TO THE WEST?

[Robert A Cook PE]

If they want a polar orbit, they need to launch south (away from Russian airspace) out over the Pacific. For a suborbital test launch though?

But you have to test the launch pad and controls and operators too before the real launch.

[Carl Vehse]

See "Artificial satellites in retrograde orbit."