What do you think? What do you know about the gravity of the Sun?Rodrigo Olivera said:The spacecraft "Helios 2" (with 100 kg of mass) used the Sun to get a speed of 250.000 km/h using gravitational assistance, I want to know if the mass of the spacecraft influences the result of the speed. I mean, if the spacecraft mass 10.000 tons, the speed would be less of more?
I honestly don't know, that's why I'm asking. I just want to know if the mass of spacecraft affects the speed of this one after the gravitational assistance.PeroK said:What do you think? What do you know about the gravity of the Sun?
It doesn't. The Sun is many times more massive than the spacecraft .Rodrigo Olivera said:I honestly don't know, that's why I'm asking. I just want to know if the mass of spacecraft affects the speed of this one after the gravitational assistance.
What is the formula for working out the Gravitational force on an object, from another Mass? Isn't the force dependent on the mass of both objects? Do a bit of Googling if you don't know the answer to that one.Rodrigo Olivera said:I honestly don't know, that's why I'm asking. I just want to know if the mass of spacecraft affects the speed of this one after the gravitational assistance.
You mean that it doesn't matter if the spacecraft mass is 10.000 tons or 100kg? The sun will give 70km/s of speed to the spacecraft anyway?PeroK said:It doesn't. The Sun is many times more massive than the spacecraft .
Rodrigo Olivera said:You mean that it doesn't matter if the spacecraft mass is 10.000 tons or 100kg? The sun will give 70km/s of speed to the spacecraft anyway?
mfb said:This stops working if the spacecraft is so massive that it changes the position of the sun notably, but then it has to be more massive than Jupiter...
Changing the position of the sun (for example) notably would affect the simplifying assumptions on which a trajectory would usually be calculated. Instead of orbiting the Sun under a force that is given by Newton's universal law of gravity based on the mass of the Sun and the distance to its center, the craft would be orbiting the barycenter of the sun/craft system under a force based on the distance to that barycenter and a reduced effective solar mass.automotiveadam7 said:Changing "the position of the sun notably" would just affect r?
Yes, and that changes the acceleration and therefore the trajectory of the object.automotiveadam7 said:Changing "the position of the sun notably" would just affect r?
The mass of an object plays a crucial role in gravitational assistance. The more massive an object is, the stronger its gravitational pull will be on other objects. This means that a more massive object can provide a greater amount of assistance to another object in terms of altering its trajectory.
Yes, the mass of the object being assisted is also important in gravitational assistance. This is because the amount of assistance provided by the assisting object is dependent on the mass of the object being assisted. A larger object will experience a greater change in trajectory due to the gravitational pull of the assisting object.
Yes, any object with mass can provide some level of gravitational assistance to other objects. However, the amount of assistance provided will vary depending on the mass of the object and its distance from the object being assisted.
Yes, the distance between the two objects does matter in gravitational assistance. The closer the two objects are, the stronger the gravitational pull will be and the greater the change in trajectory experienced by the object being assisted. As the distance increases, the gravitational force decreases and the assistance provided decreases as well.
Yes, it is possible for multiple objects to provide gravitational assistance at the same time. In fact, this is often utilized in space missions to take advantage of the gravitational pull of multiple planets or other celestial bodies in order to alter the trajectory of a spacecraft.