Questions tagged [drag]
Drag is the aerodynamic force that acts opposite of the object's velocity relative to the fluid medium it is in.
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Inflatable tank/balloon use for recovery
Hopefully this idea makes sense.
Basically if you've seen the space-truck (ROOST), you'll get where I'm going with this.
I'm wondering whether an inflatable tank/tank lining could be used to produce ...
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How do the interferometers on the drag-free satellite LISA receive power without altering their geodesic trajectory?
LISA is a proposed space probe designed to measure gravitational waves. It aims to measure gravitational waves directly by using laser interferometry. It uses a drag-free satellite design to protect ...
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What causes a satellite's orbit to decay?
Why do orbits of satellites orbiting at sufficient speed, far beyond the Earth's atmosphere, decay if there is no atmospheric drag? What drag is applied on the satellites at that altitude?
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How can I derive Starlink specs looking at the incident of February 2022?
I am trying to calculate and speculate the specifications of Starlink satellites (mainly related to propulsion) based on the accident on the 3rd of February 2022. There are multiple sources that ...
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How to estimate base drag of a rocket during powered flight
I cannot find an authoritative resource that describes how to estimate base drag for a missile or space launcher during powered flight. There are plenty of resources that describe how to estimate the ...
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How to compute orbital decay of a cubesat?
I'd like to compute the orbital decay of a cubesat in LEO/VLEO due to atmospheric drag. Here is what I've done:
Based on the Satellite Orbital Decay Calculations document coming from the Australian ...
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cross parachute - drag coefficient
I would like to know whether there is a mathematical formula which gives the drag coefficient of a parachute. I suppose that the drag coefficient is a constant depending only on the geometry of the ...
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Shouldn't space junk fall back to Earth on its own? How long will take for a ~1 cm piece of junk in LEO to fall back to Earth on its own for example?
I'm a noob in this subject and know little about space exploration, but I wonder about this every time I read the news:
Wouldn't drag make all space junk fall back to Earth after some time?
I'm ...
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Lift and Drag of a Model Rocket
Talking about aerodynamic forces in a model rocket, I believe that Lift and Drag are the components of a net force which acts on the Center of pressure. Knowing this, could I affirm that the net ...
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Drag and lift coefficient tables/plots for Saturn V/Space Shuttle/Other
I'm looking for drag and lift coefficient data to plug into my launch simulation.
I could assume constant coefficients, but I'd like to structure my model to accept lookup tables, so I'm looking for ...
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Dragon ballistic/drag coefficients?
I'm looking for some estimates of Dragon's ballistic or drag coefficients in its reentry (heat shield forward) configuration. Estimates for other spacecraft would be useful also as they would give me ...
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What technologies enable or at least help satellite operation in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO)?
This answer to How low is VLEO? (FCC's newest approval for SpaceX) suggests VLEO begins (or ends I guess) at 350 km.
The two bad things I know about in VLEO are an enhanced rate of altitude loss due ...
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Design of starship fins
How much can the falling speed of starship approximately be reduced by the bellyflop fall with fins? Are we talking about numbers around 5% or 50% here?
Wouldn't it make sense to put holes where the ...
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Orbit lifetime of a Nano-Satellite in 350 Km Orbit
I was trying to write a very simple program to calculate orbit life time of a nano-satellite.
I got the atmosphere density as function of altitude from this site.
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Is there a mathematical formula to calculate drag force without empirical testing?
Typically people put the interested rocket prototype in a wind tunnel to find out the drag force and use the drag force equation to calculate the drag coefficient of the rocket model. I am wondering ...
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