![]() Image to left: A student experiences a moment of weightlessness aboard the KC-135A. The maneuvers are carefully choreographed - up at a 45-degree angle, "over the top" and then down at 45 degrees. Each gives people and equipment aboard about 25 seconds of weightlessness. The roller-coaster maneuvers are called parabolas, because of their geometric shape. But it is the only one of its kind still flying, and it is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain the plane. John Yaniec, the program's lead test director, said the KC-135A is still going strong. "I learned an incredible amount about engineering in the real world." On the positive side, "The experience was amazing, and I wouldn't trade it for the world," a Rochester Institute of Technology student said. That's because about one in three first-time fliers gets airsick on the plane as it does its roller-coaster-like maneuvers over the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the astronauts, engineers testing equipment, scientists and students flying experiments remember it more fondly than others. This plane has been flying reduced gravity missions since 1994. 29 and will be retired at NASA's Johnson Space Center Oct. The latest of NASA's KC-135A aircraft, dubbed the Vomit Comet by the press, made its final microgravity flight Oct. Image to right: NASA's KC-135A aircraft ascends at a steep angle as it flies over the Gulf of Mexico. ![]() But even the most high-flying adventures have to end sometime. The state vectors for the scenarios that deal with n-body choreographies were obtained from his website.It's had an up-and-down career. Robert Vanderbei is a Professor in the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University. The Lambert Solver in Gravity Simulator, which was written by Hugo Granström, is based the Poliastro implementation. Poliastro is an open source pure Python package dedicated to problems arising in Astrodynamics and Orbital Mechanics, such as orbit propagation, solution of the Lambert's problem, conversion between position and velocity vectors and classical orbital elements and orbit plotting, focusing on interplanetary applications. The procedural star shaders used in Gravity Simulator were written by Ben Podgursky for Uncharted. Learn MoreĪ 3D visualization of Earth’s solar neighborhood out to 75 light years, rendered in the browser using WebGL. All spacecraft 3D models used in Gravity Simulator, unless otherwise noted, were obtained from NASA 3D Resources. Learn MoreĪ growing collection of 3D models, textures, and images from inside NASA. All asteroid models used in Gravity Simulator were obtained from the 3D asteroid Catalogue. Learn MoreģD Asteroid Catalogue is an interactive catalogue that contains 3D models, orbital and physical parameters and current orbital position of known minor bodies. All the orbital elements used to create the exoplanetary simulations were obtained from the Exoplanet Archive. The NASA Exoplanet Archive is an online astronomical exoplanet and stellar catalog and data service that collates and cross-correlates astronomical data and information on exoplanets and their host stars, and provides tools to work with these data. All state vectors for solar system scenarios were obtained from HORIZONS. The Jet Propulsions Laboratory's HORIZONS system is used to generate ephemerides for solar-system bodies. Makes maps of planets and moons, along with minor bodies and asteroids. Possibly the most helpful and gracious fellow in the WebGL community. Swedish science and programming enthusiast. Environmental economist and software developer with a strong interest in science.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |