Markus posted: > Relative airspeed between ET and orbiter is in the order of 800-830kph > at that point (sorry for being metric :). By ET I assume you mean external tank -- don't you mean the foam debris and the orbiter? (The ET and the orbiter are still mated, of course.) > In the E-212 footage it appears in eight or nine frames, depending > on how closely you look. Followed by ~2 frames where it is covered > by the wing before the impact cloud first shows up. Ahh, so roughly 10 frame durations or 1/3 of a second (again assuming 30 fps for the camera). However, I failed to account for the fact the relative velocity of the debris is increasing from the point of break off to wing-impact. Assuming constant acceleration, we have: 80 feet (?) = 1/2 * A * (0.33 seconds)^2 A = 1470 ft/sec^2 V (impact) = A * 0.33 seconds = 490 ft/sec. Still plenty fast. If I've underestimated the distance traveled, the velocity would of course be greater. --Rob ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 07 2003 - 23:46:00 EST