June - August 2019: Orbital B


Here's the transition from the Equatorial Stations phase to the Orbital B phase in the Bennu-centric mean ecliptic and equinox of J2000 reference frame (Bennu north pole is almost exactly aligned with the -Z axis).

The graph shows the following maneuvers:
# Burn time DV Dt a
M1B2019-06-08 17:00:00.00081.210.6547.62
M2B2019-06-10 17:00:00.00058.87.7347.60
M3B2019-06-12 19:31:42.11264.98.5607.58

The popup label shows the date, the radius vector (m), the altitude above Bennu (m) and the spacecraft orbital speed (mm/s).


Here are the orbits from June 12 to June 26 in the Bennu-centric mean ecliptic and equinox of J2000 reference frame.

The graph shows the insertion burn (M3B) and the first orbit after the M4B maneuver on June 25, 17:00 UTC; the NAIF's data files give a very low thrust burn: 267.245 s for a DeltaV of 17.17 mm/s. That DeltaV is calculated as the difference between the spacecraft inertial velocity vector 1 ms before the burn and the velocity vector 1 ms after the burn. Since the burn takes a significant amount of time (with respect to the orbital period), that DeltaV also includes the velocity variation due to the fact that the spacecraft is in circular motion around Bennu. The DeltaV for a 267 s orbit arc is about 1.66 mm/s, hence the DeltaV generated by the engines is 17.17 - 1.66 = 15.51 mm/s.

Although the gravitational acceleration exerted by the sun on the spacecraft is about 590 times greater than that exerted by Bennu (during this phase), a basic simulation shows that the orbit of the spacecraft is very stable (the simulation does not include the Yarkovsky effect). In fact, the spacecraft is well within the Hill sphere of Bennu (whose radius is about 45 km during this phase).

Here's the same graph as above, but in the Bennu-centric Sun Anti-Momentum reference frame.

From this view, we see that the spacecraft flies almost exactly over the terminator (the Sun is to the right, +X direction).


The graph shows the orbits from June 25 to July 2 in the Bennu-centric Sun-North frame.

After the maneuver on June 25, the graph shows an additional maneuver (M5B) on 2019-06-27 23:00:00 UTC, the DeltaV is 18.9 mm/s and the burn lasted 2.614 s.


Here are the orbits from July 2 to July 30 in the Bennu-centric Sun-North frame.