Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to would need redesigning

how do I find out more about this subject
Marcus — (archived)

Is there a good primer on the web, or a book about re-entry in general. All I know about re-entry is the obvious which is that the idea of the exercise is to convert all the vehicle's (relative to Earth) KE and relative PE from the intial state (a lot of both) to the final state which is zero whilst limiting acceleration to a particular maximum value and maintaining controlled flight. The proven ways of doing this are using an ablative heatshield (Apollo), just plain parasitic friction (shuttle orbiter), and at lower altitudes parachute, parafoil and rocket motors to dump energy or a combination of these. The trick is to design the vehicle to lose both forms of energy at just the right rate. How this is actually achieved and the physics of hypersonic flight I have no idea about.

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