Question

A Titan IV rocket has put your spacecraft in a circular orbit around Earth at an altitude of 280 km. Calculate the force due to gravitational attraction between the Earth and the spacecraft in N if the mass of the spacecraft is 2550 kg.

Answer 1

Answer:

$F = 12.964\times 10^{6}\,N$

Explanation:

The force experimented by the rocket due to the gravitational attraction is given by the following formula:

$F =G\cdot \frac{m\cdot M}{r^{2}}$

Where $m$ and $M$ are the masses of the rocket and Earth, respectively.

The force due to the gravitational attraction is:

$F=(6.674\times 10^{-11}\,\frac{N\cdot m^{2}}{kg^{2}} )\cdot \frac{(2550\,kg)\cdot (5.972\times 10^{24}\,kg)}{(280\times 10^{3}\,m)^{2}}$

$F = 12.964\times 10^{6}\,N$