Category: Orbits

Fascinating Frequencies 6

For our final Fascinating Frequencies challenge, we will be using chemistry, physics, simulations, and orbits.

An experiment is held in space station orbiting earth from a geostationary orbit. Unfortunately, the scientists onboard forgot to properly secure one side of the space station. The side pointing prograde. Well, at least not retrograde, but their orbit is still messed up seriously. The reaction was between sodium and fluorine, with 19 kilograms fluorine and 23 kilograms sodium. The mass of the space station is 500 megagrams, including remaining fuel. How many grams of fuel must the scientists burn minimum to bring their rocket back to geostationary orbit? The scientists’ rocket fuses hydrogen and oxygen.

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Fascinating Frequencies 2

This challenge involves orbits.

A geostationary orbit is one where the satellite stays in the same position relative to the ground. This works because the earth spins; the velocity that keeps it over the same spot increases while the velocity needed to orbit decreases. At some point, they intersect. All geostationary orbits must be at the equator, and have the same altitude althroughout. If you wanted to get a satellite into geostationary orbit around a planet with mass of 5,000 yottagrams that completes 1 revolution every 20 hours, how fast would your orbital speed be at apoapsis? The apoapsis is the highest point in an orbit.

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