Question

A descent vehicle landing on the moon has a vertical velocity toward the surface of the moon of 37.7 m/s. At the same time, it has a horizontal velocity of 54.6 m/s. At what speed does the vehicle move along its descent path? Answer in units of m/s.

Answer 1

Answer:

The speed of the vehicle moving along its descent path is $v=66.35 ms^{-1}$.

Explanation:

It is given in the problem that a descent vehicle landing on the moon has a vertical velocity toward the surface of the moon of 37.7 m/s. At the same time, it has a horizontal velocity of 54.6 m/s.

The expression for the velocity of the vehicle moving along the descent path is as follows;

$v=\sqrt{v_{x}^{2}+v_{y}^{2}}$

Here,$v_{y}$ is the vertical velocity of the vehicle landing on the surface of the moon and $v_{x}$ is the horizontal velocity of the vehicle landing on the surface of the moon.

Put $v_{x}=54.6 ms^{-1}$ and $v_{y}=-37.7 ms^{-1}$ in the above expression.

$v=\sqrt{(54.6)^{2}+(-37.7)^{2}}$

$v=\sqrt{2981.1+1421.29}$

$v=66.35 ms^{-1}$

Therefore, the speed of the vehicle moving along its descent path is $v=66.35 ms^{-1}$.