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To: Swordmaker
If the impact of "heat" from the sun and the re-radiation of said "heat", plus heat generated from the radioisotopic generator, are the source of this thrust, then wouldn't all of it would be imbalanced, some coming at greater leverage and from larger areas than others, imparting an uncontrolled, erratic yaw on the vehicle?

They are spin stabilized, so no, I don't think that yaw would occur until the control systems run out of fuel.

23 posted on 04/16/2008 1:36:31 PM PDT by AndrewC
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To: AndrewC
They are spin stabilized, so no, I don't think that yaw would occur until the control systems run out of fuel.

I know... but some of these spacecraft that are displaying this anomaly are far beyond their expected and designed life and probably have long ago exhausted the stabilizing fuel (it would be too expensive in Delta-V to provide a fuel supply that would exceed mission parameters, don't you think?) yet they are still sufficiently oriented toward Earth that we can receive their signal. Also, I think that the control people would have noticed an unusually high number of stabilizing maneuvers as the vehicle re-oriented itself if that were the case. It appears to me that whatever is applying a force to the vehicle is acting on the vehicle as a whole and not preferentially on any of its parts due to size or positional leverage.

24 posted on 04/16/2008 3:40:10 PM PDT by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)
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