Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Landing

Another simulation that's important is landing. A parachute landing has a speed of about 10 mph. That's the speed something dropped for 0.5 seconds will reach (10 mph is about 15 fps and that's close enough to 16 fps which is reached in 0.5 seconds at an acceleration of 32.2 feet per second squared). In 0.5 seconds, an object falls roughly four feet (distance = 1/2 * 32.2 * 0.5^2). So to simulate a parachute landing, drop the module (BalloonSat) from a height of four feet.

If it can land without blowing apart, then you'll probably get the experiment back in one piece.

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