How Does Altitude Affect Gravity?

[singinglupine]

A space shuttle is flying at an altitude of 12.000 km above the Earth. A satellite in its cargo bay is floating freely and its engines are about to boost it to a higher orbit. What is the acceleration due to gravity on the satellite? The radius of the Earth is 6370 km. The mass of the Earth is 5.980×1024 kg. Enter you answer with an accuracy of 0.01%.

This is what I've figured out:

g = GM/r^2 in which r is the radius of the Earth plus my distance 12 km so that I get g =((5.98e24)(6.674e-11))/((6370 +12)*1000)^2

This isn't working for me, I get 9.79882, I've tried many versions of this. Any suggestions where I'm going wrong?

 

[all_relative]

Try converting km to m and then see what you get.

 

[singinglupine]

After adding 12 to 6370, I did multiple it by 1000 to convert to meters.

 

[tiny-tim]

A space shuttle is flying at an altitude of 12.000 km above the Earth. A satellite in its cargo bay is floating freely and its engines are about to boost it to a higher orbit. What is the acceleration due to gravity on the satellite? The radius of the Earth is 6370 km. The mass of the Earth is 5.980×1024 kg. Enter you answer with an accuracy of 0.01%.

This is what I've figured out:

g = GM/r^2 in which r is the radius of the Earth plus my distance 12 km so that I get g =((5.98e24)(6.674e-11))/((6370 +12)*1000)^2

This isn't working for me, I get 9.79882, I've tried many versions of this. Any suggestions where I'm going wrong?

Looks ok to me.

 

[singinglupine]

Thanks, the deadline has passed so the answers will be up in a couple hours and I'll see how far off I was. Sometimes the online problem site will be really picky how close your answer is.