Questions tagged [reentry]

Questions related to the movement of human-made objects as they enter atmosphere of Earth or other planetary bodies with atmospheres from space after being successfully launched.

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Hypersonic dynamic shift in large vs. small lifting bodies

Background: Lifting bodies have been tested at small scales, though not during re-entry. For instance: the NASA HL10 Such Lifting-Body designs are seemingly here to stay with craft such as Dreamchaser ...
Anti Elon Guy's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
239 views

Could you skim along the Karman line using a parafoil?

Imagine a person just wearing a spacesuit equipped with a parafoil returning from low orbit. Could they maintain altitude starting at 7.8 km/s above or along the Karman line slowly losing speed—maybe ...
Prototypist's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
3k views

How dangerous is tossing equipment off the ISS?

On 2023 June 22, during an ISS spacewalk, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin "tossed overboard" three no longer needed devices, "off the back of the space station in a direction that ...
Camille Goudeseune's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
126 views

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 ...
Anti Elon Guy's user avatar
17 votes
2 answers
1k views

What kind of heating would occur during a suborbital re-entry?

What kinds of peak temperatures would a stage similar in proportions to the Space shuttle with a similar belly-first approach experience when re-entering from a low suborbital trajectory (similar to a ...
XBN's user avatar
  • 179
2 votes
0 answers
98 views

Would the steel frame/skin of Starship be able to endure loss of a heat shield tile during reentry?

STS-27 was able survive reentry without a tile because the was over a metal component with sufficient thermal inertia to serve as a heat sink without melting. Would the steel frame of Starship be able ...
Anton Hengst's user avatar
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19 votes
1 answer
3k views

How did STS-27 survive reentry after losing a thermal tile?

My buddies and I have been arguing about this for a while, speculating about the upcoming Starship test. STS-27 suffered damage on ascent that knocked off a tile & damaged hundreds more. It only ...
Anton Hengst's user avatar
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9 votes
4 answers
4k views

Why don't SpaceX boosters belly flop?

The first F9 booster landing attempts failed because the booster broke up. After that, they began lighting the engines in the upper atmosphere to slow the booster. It seems to me that their problem ...
Abdullah's user avatar
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0 votes
2 answers
309 views

How can Starship belly flop with a full payload?

Starship had an empty weight of under 100 tons. Of this, less than 12 tons is accounted for by the engines. Starship is supposed to be able to make atmospheric entry with a 150 ton payload in the nose....
Abdullah's user avatar
  • 2,615
2 votes
1 answer
156 views

Will there be a flame around the capsule from Stoke Space Technologies during reentery?

Stoke Space Technologies (https://www.stokespace.com/) will send fuel through the heat shield of its capsule to keep it from heating up. They actually mentioned that they are more concerned that the ...
The Rocket fan's user avatar
-2 votes
1 answer
131 views

Design constrains for non-aerobraking re-entry vehicle?

Currently, getting from orbit to ground always involves aerobraking to shed lots of orbital velocity. This is a dangerous, stressful maneuver which also cannot be repeated with same vehicle due to the ...
Euphoric's user avatar
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1 answer
112 views

Does an inflatable heat shield have some capacity to be used for LEO Earth's atmospheric entry?

It was originally designed and tested by NASA for Mars missions. In my case, it does not have to work 100%. Even if it survives for only 1 minute or so, during atmospheric entry - it could add some ...
TheMatrix Equation-balance's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
293 views

Do larger less dense objects heat less while entering the atmophere?

When a space craft enters the atmosphere, it gets hot and heat shielding is needed. Do objects with more surface area and less density heat up less then heavier, smaller objects? Could an object with ...
Justintimeforfun's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
106 views

What do they call “all the provisions provided during the launch campaign or atmospheric re-entry of a spacecraft“ in the context of astronautics?

I am reading an entry in a French dictionary and translating it into English. This entry is “sauvegarde.” In a general context, this term is translated as “safeguard,” “protection,” or even “...
Micheal Gignac's user avatar
20 votes
2 answers
3k views

How much does it cost to return 1 kg from the ISS to the Earth? What are the parameters influencing this price?

I heard in a few places downmass is a limiting factor in the ISS national lab capacity. Is that true? According to NASA's pricing plan, it actually costs more to get downmass than upmass. Why is that?
nadav zilberman's user avatar
12 votes
3 answers
2k views

During spacecraft reentry why is heatshield side down the most stable orientation?

During reentry, why is the orientation of the spacecraft where the heat shield side leads the vehicle the most stable? I'm not sure how accurate KSP is, but when I reenter the atmosphere headshield ...
learningmath12345's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
193 views

What is the reason Starlink satellites took 4 days to re-enter during the accident on February 2022?

I am reviewing the incident that knocked out 39 Starlink satellites earlier this year. As I explain in this thread, there was a modest magnetic storm on the 3rd of February, which increased ...
Playstation_waifu's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
179 views

Does a capsule rotate naturally during atmospheric re-entry?

If during atmospheric re-entry a capsule (with a shifted center of mass to produce lift) does not produce any rcs thrust, will the capsule naturally roll? and why?
Sebastyen Laroche's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
996 views

Has NASA used a consistent definition of "entry interface"?

The question "Orion re-entry velocity: Why is it higher than Apollo?" has an unstated but critical assumption: that re-entry is measured at the same point for both missions. The point ...
Mark's user avatar
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7 votes
1 answer
820 views

Orion re-entry velocity: Why is it higher than Apollo?

Title says it all. I am puzzled why Orion will be traveling faster than Apollo.
Christine Ocho's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
107 views

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 ...
Astronaute's user avatar
25 votes
2 answers
5k views

Why don't we know exactly where the Chinese rocket will fall?

China has launched another Long March 5B rocket that seems liable to fall anywhere Although the overall risk of harm to people is low—there is only a 0.5 percent chance of injury or death to a human, ...
Machavity's user avatar
  • 7,728
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

I'm building a CubeSat for a short 8-day mission in LEO followed by a fairly quick reentry, what range of orbits to consider?

The goal of this CubeSat mission is to demonstrate CubeSat construction, operation, and communication in Low Earth orbit for 8 days or longer. Why the short mission time? Because the mission lacks ...
Deko Revinio's user avatar
20 votes
2 answers
4k views

Do we actually know what re-entry looks like?

So I was watching this video of a talk given by the creators of the game Kerbal Space Program. The video is more or less about game development, but this part (link should go right to the moment but ...
Mia's user avatar
  • 303
3 votes
1 answer
156 views

How do we ensure that during reentry or descent of spent stages, it doesnt hit any aircraft or incoming rocket?

When a rocket is launched, stages are separated at different intervals and altitude. The lower stages usually descend immediately while upper stages and orbital platforms usually last in space a bit ...
Shubham Srivastava's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
241 views

Commencing atmospheric re-entry

Once a decision is taken to get back home (earth), a spacecraft, I think has two options: 1 - To reduce its speed (by firing the thrusters located in the forward or something similar), so that it is ...
Niranjan's user avatar
  • 3,758
2 votes
1 answer
197 views

How could space-manufactured goods be transported to earth surface?

In the near-to-mid future when ISRU and manufacturing in space is large enough to have an export industry back to Earth, there may be not only a significant volume of raw materials heading back to ...
Ingolifs's user avatar
  • 6,294
11 votes
1 answer
2k views

Does the debris from the re-entry of Long March core stage ever reach the surface?

It's common for SpaceX to de-orbit the second stage over the ocean (since they still have fuel for controlled re-entry,) but for the Long March core stage that is not the case. Meteorites have hit the ...
TeaBag's user avatar
  • 111
3 votes
2 answers
217 views

Could dust kicked up from the Apollo landings reach Earth intact?

According to various sources (1,2, and 3) lunar landings kick up a lot of dust at very high speeds. Is it possible that some dust was able to get fast enough to escape the moon, fall towards Earth, ...
Starship - On Strike's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
105 views

What does it mean when they say "switch to 32K " during the Phoenix Mars entry

In the Phoenix Mars entry video they keep saying "Odyssey switching to 32k", "Stop of Odyssey unintelligible Data and switch to 32k",and "We ...
spaceamoeba1010's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
4k views

Why does the Falcon 9 first stage continue to decelerate after its reentry engine burnout?

As you know, Space X streams its missions and the speed and altitude data of the vehicle is shown. After stage separation, stage one gains speed and accelerates in its decent trajectory till reentry ...
جامکلو حسن's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
117 views

How to design Heading Alignment Cone(HAC)?

I am trying to design a Heading Alignment Cone. Of course, the radius of the circle depends on different parameters like energy, altitude, and aerothermal characteristics of the reentry vehicle and ...
Auberron's user avatar
  • 1,495
0 votes
0 answers
170 views

How do I convert from one local NED frame to another?

A little bit of background in case you are interested. I am running a re-entry simulation, and I am dealing with two different reference frames. The one with the higher fidelity dynamics is in the ...
alexmesa's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
51 views

How spontaneously can a spacecraft be deorbited [duplicate]

Currently the return of AX-1 has been rescheduled multiple days due to weather concerns in the landing area. How quickly could astronauts on the ISS evacuate to the ground if so required? Scenarios ...
Hans's user avatar
  • 3,372
11 votes
2 answers
388 views

Mystery balls! Gemini apparently had "thousands of hollow ping-pong-sized balls made of extremely thin aluminum embedded within its walls". What?

This fascinating answer says that "The Gemini capsule floated because it had thousands of hollow balls made of extremely thin aluminum, each composed of two half-spheres welded together, the size ...
Anton Hengst's user avatar
  • 10.6k
5 votes
1 answer
158 views

How might an "imminent Starlink reentry in your area" alerting script work?

The video below Space debris over Puerto Rico (2/7/2022) SAC seems likely to show one or more reentering Starlink satellites from the 40 "Starlost" lost to atmospheric heating due to a ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 148k
15 votes
2 answers
3k views

Did any Columbia debris continue orbiting Earth?

For reentry the Space Shuttles lowered their perigee to 28 nautical miles (52 km) above sea level. Shuttle Columbia disintegrated around 60 km altitude, and the first debris fell off as high as 70.5 ...
user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
797 views

Would it be feasible to decelerate a crewed vehicle from ~25 km/s only using the atmosphere of Mars (in the context of an "express transit")?

I boldly assumed it would some day be possible to accelerate a crewed vehicle from a refueling station (LEO, GEO, Moon orbit?) to ~35-40 km/s (with several stages) relative to Mars, so it would make ...
Felix Tritschler's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
162 views

Heatshield during re-entry of space vehicles

All the CMs for Apollo, as well as the space shuttles, basically used "Blunt body" technique for re-entry. While Apollo CMs used "ablative" type of heatshield, the space shuttles ...
Niranjan's user avatar
  • 3,758
11 votes
2 answers
5k views

Could sheets of stacked graphene be used as part of a heat shield, since its melting point is 3000k to 5000 K

Since graphene material is the strongest manmade material, with "magical" properties, I wonder if it could be considered for use as a heat shield, since its melting point is 3000 to 5000 K ...
Emmanuel Mahuni's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
4k views

Can an ISS module survive reentry?

Nasa is making plans to de-orbit the ISS safely over the pacific ocean, this eventually leads to the question of whether or not an ISS module can survive reentry (survive meaning it is recognizable ...
Guest2204's user avatar
13 votes
3 answers
3k views

Has SpaceX chosen to drop the Transpiration cooling of Starship? If so, why?

Earlier, there was news about a proposed concept for Starship to include "transpirational cooling" in its reentry heat shield design. These days there is less news about this and tests so ...
Mhd Afz's user avatar
  • 411
3 votes
1 answer
264 views

Do reentering capsules always make a(n Earth-shattering ka-)boom and look like a fireball if at night? Time & epicenter predictable w/ public info?

SpaceX enjoys press. So the unexpected events popping up in the news is good for them. March 26, 2021: Fire ball burning over Woodland WA- SpaceX second stage re-entry and burn up. A ‘spectacular’ ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 148k
5 votes
1 answer
936 views

Dragon re-entry flight profile?

I was looking online for a profile depicting the Dragon re-entry similar to those showing the launch and first stage re-entry (e.g. https://www.elonx.net/wp-content/uploads/...
Peter - Reinstate Monica's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
588 views

What is the heat shield refurbishment procedure for a crew Dragon capsule?

How, specifically, is the heat shield replaced or refurbished? More precisely... How do they know it will work for the next mission? :-P
Michael Stachowsky's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
216 views

Soyuz: Do you know the coefficient drag and lift to drag ratio are during reentry?

I've been learning Python as a hobby the last two years. I like spaceflight too. Therefore I wrote this code to simulate the reentry of a Soyuz. I'd appreciate some feedback: https://github.com/fra-...
Francisco Martínez's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
193 views

How does a returning Falcon first stage decide when to end its re-entry burn?

When a Falcon 9 first stage is returning to Earth to land, it performs a brief re-entry burn in order to slow down. My question is, what criteria does the first stage control software use to decide ...
Jeremy Friesner's user avatar
22 votes
2 answers
4k views

Space Shuttle Challenger bringing back Salyut-7

We know that on February 11 1985, right after the Soviets lost control of their Salyut-7 station. US Space tracking assets also started noticing that the station was starting to tumble. Kidnapping a ...
Jeroen Smink's user avatar
  • 1,134
2 votes
0 answers
54 views

Has there been any bolide-spacecraft near-miss?

Has there been any incident where a reentering spacecraft nearly collided with a meteor?
Abdullah's user avatar
  • 2,615
5 votes
0 answers
100 views

Do aeroshells need to be super smooth to survive atmospheric entry?

IIRC, one of the arguments against Shuttle Columbia's hole being repaired was that the repair would not be smooth. Apparently, the heat shielding relied on a sensitive boundary layer. Even a small ...
Abdullah's user avatar
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