Variable Gravity Landing

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Landing Spacecraft On Space Station
 (6.1 Trillion Kilogram Spherical Station, Diameter 1.0 km)

The 6.1 Trillion (6,000,000,000,000) Kilogram sphere is centered at  X = 0, Y = 0. The spacecraft is stationary at Y = 1001 meters, X = 0 meters.  Put simply, the Spacecraft is 501 meters above "north pole" of the space station.  The stationary spaceship will slowly freefall to surface of sphere (Y = 500 meters).  By slowly I mean over 1000 seconds of freefall must transpire before spacecraft is pulled near surface of sphere.  Remember you must click STOP ENGINE to advance time during freefall. You should  fire your engines to avoid high speed crash landings (Maximum Safe Docking Speed = .1 meters per second).    

 

[Engineers Contro Panel]

                                                              
  Enter Ship Orientation (0 - 360 degrees)        Enter Thrust Duration (Integer 1- 6000 seconds)

Speed (meters/sec)      Course (degrees)

X (in km) = , Y (in km) =   

 Time (in kilo-seconds)   
 Fuel Expended (in seconds of Full Power) 

Engine Control Buttons Below:

 

                                      Reenter course and burn duration after Reset

 

Experiments you could try. Calculate Escape velocity and gravitational attraction of space station and use that information in planning orbits and trajectories. Plot Orbits on Space Station Graph Paper. 

 

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Last updated: September 21, 2007.