Where is the best place to park your damaged spaceship, longterm?
Your large spaceship is damaged beyond repair. You manage to get it close enough to a planet so that you can release emergency shuttle craft. You have very little control over the ship and won't be able control it much longer.
The story demands that the ruined ship still be in orbit or close by (but not on planet) for millenia. Where do you leave the ship so that it doesn't:
- rain down on you while re-entering the atmosphere in the shuttle craft
- crash land onto the planet over the following years (I don't mind a few pieces making arkfa...landfall but the ship should preferably stay in space)
- slingshot itself into outer space
- coast on, into the sun ala BSG style.
The planet is:
- slightly smaller than Earth
- has a planetary rings
- two small shephard moons chasing each other through the rings
- a small moon within its Roche limit
- either one or two larger moons
Where is the best place to park it for the foreseeable longterm before a towtruck can be arranged and how long could it realistically stay in this sort of position without constant maneuvers before orbital mechanics pick it up and take it to the impound yard? Note: I don't actually intend to tow it anywhere at anytime.
Is crashing it into one of the larger moons the only option or is there a way to possibly keep this ruined hulking artifact hanging forlornly in space.
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1 answer
A simple extremely high orbit, such as the aptly named Graveyard Orbit - These orbits are really high and designed so that the satellites will be there for a very, very long time. An orbit should be able to be accomplished outside the ring system (And thus, outside major influence from the moons).
For a more permanent solution, depending on how small the moons are, you could land on one of them. HOWEVER, a spacecraft not designed to land will almost certainly be destroyed in the process.
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