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While listening in on today's Crew Dragon 1 rendezvous, I noticed something interesting: the announced duration for the final coelliptic burn was "25 to 35 seconds". And this wasn't just a vague statement by PR: it was the actual transmission from mission control to the capsule.

Back in the Apollo days, NASA was able to give crews burn times to within a second (or less, for some of the brief midcourse corrections). Why isn't SpaceX being this precise?

Mark
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  • Why isn't SpaceX being this precise... in their announced verbal descriptions of the durations of brief midcourse corrections? – uhoh Nov 17 '20 at 01:32
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    Well, how long between this communication and the scheduled start of burn? If it is more than a couple orbits, then perhaps they haven't run the final calculation yet. And weren't the Apollo burns controlled by the crew, whereas SpaceX burns are ground-controlled? – Carl Witthoft Nov 17 '20 at 14:00
  • @CarlWitthoft: Most Apollo burns were done by computer; the manual maneuvers are few enough to be detailed here. – DrSheldon Nov 17 '20 at 14:53
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    Having a deja vu https://space.stackexchange.com/q/25086/21562 – Everyday Astronaut Nov 17 '20 at 15:04
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    @EverydayAstronaut not really -- that was a rather different set of circumstances – Carl Witthoft Nov 17 '20 at 15:37
  • @CarlWitthoft I think the comment refers to what happens to the question and its answer, rather than what happens in space. – uhoh Nov 17 '20 at 18:47
  • @CarlWitthoft, this was the final transmission prior to the burn. IIRC, it was about 20 minutes before, where the Apollo transmissions I've looked at were between one and two hours earlier. – Mark Nov 17 '20 at 21:19
  • That's consistent with Musk's companies ability to provide accurate time estimates, no surprise here. :-D – Diego Sánchez Nov 19 '20 at 06:21

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