The second approach is to use (Figure) to find the orbital speed of the Soyuz, which we did for the ISS in (Figure). It has a total of 932 cubic meters of space. Mass: The ISS will weigh around 450 tons (408,000 kg), or 450 times the weight of an average car. As stated earlier, the kinetic energy of a circular orbit is always one-half the magnitude of the potential energy, and the same as the magnitude of the total energy. The dimensions of the completed ISS research facility will be approximately 356 feet (109 meters) by 240 feet (73 meters), or slightly larger than a football field. Earth’s gravity is the only force acting, so Newton’s second law gives It has centripetal acceleration directed toward the center of Earth. ISS maintains its speed due to the law of inertia. We focus on objects orbiting Earth, but our results can be generalized for other cases.Ĭonsider a satellite of mass m in a circular orbit about Earth at distance r from the center of Earth ( (Figure)). When the ISS was launched into orbit, it was set up at the speed of 17150 mph or 27600 kmph and then Physics does its job. Our computation for the special case of circular orbits will confirm this. Space junk hurtling towards the station smashed into one of its robotic arms, leaving a. As we described in the previous section, an object with negative total energy is gravitationally bound and therefore is in orbit. The International Space Station has been hit by fast-moving debris but it didnt cause too much damage. The exception is the eccentric orbit of Mercury, whose orbital distance varies nearly 40%.ĭetermining the orbital speed and orbital period of a satellite is much easier for circular orbits, so we make that assumption in the derivation that follows. Earth’s orbital distance from the Sun varies a mere 2%. Later analysis by Kepler showed that these orbits are actually ellipses, but the orbits of most planets in the solar system are nearly circular. He further noted that orbital periods increased with distance from the Sun. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, Nicolaus Copernicus first suggested that Earth and all other planets orbit the Sun in circles.
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