23
votes
Accepted
If Earth had a second moon, where would it be positioned?
Certainly the Earth could have ended up with additional moons, and Newtonian physics can say some things about the kinds of orbits they might have, but there is a range of possibilities.
First of all, ...
- 9,819
14
votes
Accepted
Have any bits of a space mission ever collided with a planet or large moon (not Earth) that was not a target of the mission?
Yes
https://scitechdaily.com/space-junk-just-crashed-into-the-far-side-of-the-moon-at-5800-mph/
A piece of space junk (China or spaceX) hit the far side of the moon
- 434
7
votes
Have any bits of a space mission ever collided with a planet or large moon (not Earth) that was not a target of the mission?
I do not think it has happened. (Note - when I wrote my answer, "Or large moon" was not part of the question. Space junk hitting the moon is not so surprising, although it is interesting - ...
- 9,819
6
votes
Calculating and Drawing the orbit of a body in a 2D gravity simulation in python
The easiest initial approach to this is probably to propagate your state forward in time steps, with a time delta small enough to have reasonable accuracy.
You can ...
6
votes
Have any bits of a space mission ever collided with a planet or large moon (not Earth) that was not a target of the mission?
The SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage that launched NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory to a Sun-Earth LaGrange point in February 2015 did not have enough propellant remaining to return to burn up in the ...
- 8,752
5
votes
Have any bits of a space mission ever collided with a planet or large moon (not Earth) that was not a target of the mission?
or at least are there projections that it may happen?
Yes there is!
SpaceX's Elon Musk's goal of getting people to Mars is no secret, and the demonstration of Falcon Heavy put his old car on a ...
- 149k
4
votes
Circularization of an orbit on gmat
Your approach seems wrong. In order to circularize an orbit, you have to raise your perigee until it's equal to your apogee. It is implausible to do that only by varying the duration.
I suggest you ...
- 81
2
votes
Difference in using flat earth or round earth model for equation of motion
Spherical geometry is quite different than cartesian trigonometry.. the sum of all angles in a triangle can be up to 540°, distances are different etc. particular the initial choice of flight angle w....
- 2,906
1
vote
How to get contact locator events in GMAT using Python
I am trying to do the same thing, so if you have found an answer please post it!
One method that does work is to generate and run a script using the gmat objects, so I am doing: -
...
- 11
1
vote
Difference in using flat earth or round earth model for equation of motion
I'll dip my toe into the quicksand and try not fall in.
Spaceflight math dates back to the era of pocket protectors and slide rules. If you needed more digits to say multiply or take a square root, ...
- 149k
1
vote
Has NASA ever included a ground controller or astronaut becoming insane/irrational/uncooperative in a training simulation?
I'm pretty sure the answer is yes, in an "analogue astronaut" training mission that happened May-July 2022 at the Human Exploration Research Analogue (HERA) facility in Houston. As that ...
- 1,428
1
vote
Has NASA ever included a ground controller or astronaut becoming insane/irrational/uncooperative in a training simulation?
For the ground operations launch simulations at KSC (Kennedy Space Center) the tests were all hardware / software failures testing how the teams would react to those failures. Onboard failures, ground ...
- 908
1
vote
Can Kerbal Space Program act as a suitable simulator with the right mods?
Having tried for years to use KSP as a simulator for developing trajectory optimization algorithms in MechJeb, I'd say there are some severe issues with considering KSP something that e.g. NASA would ...
- 993
1
vote
Accepted
Does Kerbal Space Program have a software migration path to Lagrange points, halo orbits, and other 3-body goodies?
With regards to the updated questions:
Lagrange points, horseshoe, tadpole and halo orbits
low-energy transfers and the beloved Interplanetary Transport Network
These are all possible today in KSP ...
- 993
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible