August 19, 2020

Learn Rocket Science with Interactive Simulations

Rocket science made easy with these simulations

Let us learn by doing

Try these four challenges, that might help you to understand fundamentals of space science

Challenge 1: Understanding Gravity and Orbits
Challenge 2: Moon Landing
Challenge 3: Solar System Motion
Challenge 4: Interplanetary Transfer Simulation
Bonus: Why Mars?
Useful Resources

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Challenge 1: Understanding Gravity and Orbits

Description

Move the sun, earth, moon and space station to see how it affects their gravitational forces and orbital paths. Visualize the sizes and distances between different heavenly bodies, and turn off gravity to see what would happen without it!

Learning Goals

Describe the relationship between the Sun, Earth, Moon and space station, including orbits and positions
Explain how gravity controls the motion of our solar system
Predict how motion would change if gravity was stronger or weaker

Instructions

1.) Select "Model"

2.) Select 2-body (Earth and Moon) from right panel

3.) Make sure "Gravity" is on

4.) Select "Gravity Force" and "Path"

5.) Press the play button

6.) Zoom out (-) to get a better view

You should able to see a circular orbit of Moon around the Earth

Decrease the mass of the Earth by 25% and keep Moon's original mass as constant. What is its orbit shape?

Challenge 2: Moon Landing

Description

Can you avoid the boulder field and land safely, just before your fuel runs out, as Neil Armstrong did in 1969? This version of this classic video game accurately simulates the real motion of the lunar lander with the correct mass, thrust, fuel consumption rate, and lunar gravity. The real lunar lander is very hard to control.

Learning Goals

Explore how the lunar lander behaves on the moon.
Can you measure the value of the moon's gravitational pull?
Explore the relation between the force vectors on the lunar lander and the amount of thrust you apply to it.

Try to do a soft landing (velocity < 2 m/s)

Challenge 3: Solar System Motion

Description

Build your own system of heavenly bodies and watch the gravitational ballet. With this orbit simulator, you can set initial positions, velocities, and masses of 2, 3, or 4 bodies, and then see them orbit each other.

Learning Goals

Predict the necessary mass, velocity, and distance from the sun of a planet in order for this planet to make a circular orbit around a sun.

Intructions:

1.) Select the Preset to three-body problem [Sun, Planet, Moon]

2.) Make sure "System centered" and "Show Traces" are ON

3.) Adjust Scale to "accurate" and select "number of bodies" to 3

4.) At t = 0 sec, with the default values press Start

What happens when you increase or decrease the mass of the planet, but keep everything else constant? Does this agree with your prediction?

Here's why Sun is dancing:

We say that planets orbit stars, but that’s not the whole truth. Planets and stars actually orbit around their common center of mass. This common center of mass is called the barycenter. Barycenters also help astronomers search for planets beyond our solar system!

If a star has planets, the star orbits around a barycenter that is not at its very center. This causes the star to look like it’s wobbling.

Challenge 4: Interplanetary Transfer Simulation

A solar system simulator that can calculate transfers between planets, moons and stars.

What It Does

The major purpose of the program is to calculate various types of transfers.

It can calculate ballistic transfers between planets and moons, and powered (constant acceleration) transfers between stars.
It can also calculate propagation delay due to the absolute speed of light between planets and moons.
Think of it as Google Maps for space – except space has three dimensions, not two, and everything’s moving all the time.

How to Look Around

To move the camera, click and drag. You can zoom in and out by scrolling. The entire system is rendered at real scale, so to see planetary surfaces you have to scroll in a fair bit. The coloured transparent spheres are just markers telling you where the planets are so you can actually see them along with their orbit.

Transfers Between Planets

The simulator can determine the trajectory of a transfer between planets. This trajectory is ballistic, the rocket engine is only activated at each planet to start and end the trajectory. The system calculates (for an optimal ballistic transfer) the start time of the transfer, the transfer time, the needed change in velocity, and the orbital parameters for the transfer orbit.

Watch this short video

Transfer – Earth to Mars

Go to this wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars) and choose any Launch date.

Select Earth and Mars on the right hand toolbar
On left hand toolbar select your date
Click calculate transfer, and wait for the calculations to finish
Look at the orbit in the simulator and the Delta V breakdown below

Why Mars?

After the Earth, Mars is the most habitable planet in our solar system due to several reasons:

Its soil contains water to extract
It isn’t too cold or too hot
There is enough sunlight to use solar panels
Gravity on Mars is 38% that of our Earth's, which is believed by many to be sufficient for the human body to adapt
It has an atmosphere (albeit a thin one) that offers protection from cosmic and the Sun's radiation
The day/night rhythm is very similar to ours here on Earth: a Mars day is 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds

The point to be made is that unlike colonists on any other known extraterrestrial body, Martian colonists will be able to live on the surface, not in tunnels, and move about freely and grow crops in the light of day.

Mars is a place where humans can live and multiply to large numbers, supporting themselves with products of every description made out of indigenous materials. Mars is thus a place where an actual civilization, not just a mining or scientific outpost, can be developed. For our generation, and those which will soon follow, Mars is the New World.

As Always thanks for reading:)