Space Flight?

Question

All space missions (I think) travel in the plane the Earth sits in and then uses the gravity from planets along the way to slingshot further.
Is is possible for a craft to just fly North or South away from the Earth rather than towards other planets in an East/West direction?

Answer 1

The reason most space flights are launced from West to East is to take advantage of the Earth's rotational force to help the space craft achieve orbit.

Some satellites have been launched North/South because they needed to be in a polar orbit, but a North/South orbit requires much more energy than a West to East launch.

It is possible to launch straight up, but it doesn't make sense to do so given the energy requirements necessary to do so. Using rotational force to help achieve orbit, again, saves a great deal of enerty. In order to escape Earth's gravity, even more energy is needed. That's why spacecraft are slung around the planet to help pick up speed. What is called a slingshot effect.

In order to send a spacecraft into deep space, again, it makes more sense slingshot around the outer planets rather than load the craft with the necessary fuel to accomplish the needed extra velocity. A space craft heading away from Earth needs to escape Earth's gravity. A space craft heading out of the Solar System needs to escape the Sun's gravity.

Answer 2

EVERY space flight uses the energy imparted on it from Earth to move into orbit. Objects launched into polar orbit take about 8% more energy to achieve the same altitude than an W-E launch, like the shuttle from Cape Kennedy.

We currently have a sattelite orbiting the sun that is almost 1/2 A.U. BELOW the plane of the ecliptic, and one of the early Jupiter missions is above, and one below the plane of the ecliptic.

Missions to the outer planets use gravity assist to accellerate away from Earth - the Pluto probe used the Earth/Moon system twice, I believe, to accellerate, and then recently did another gravity assist manuver at Jupiter.

This is a very common practice.

Answer 3

Yes. They're called polar satellites. There are lots of them. Polar orbits are good for mapping, since you can map the entire Earth. Spy satellites are good for polar orbits too. Leave Geo-Synch orbits to weather satellites and communications though.

Answer 4

Yes, that is possible. I think at least one mission did that. If I find the web site for the mission later, I'll post it here as a source.

OK, here is the mission.