Jeff Regester
Chris Bernhardt
Physics
Chemistry
Jason Cheek
Melinda Graham
Mathematics
Mathematics
Tim Martin
Earth Science
Eric Shilling
Mathematics
Greensboro Day School
Hooke’s Law Orbital Motion
Reduced-Gravity Flight Experiment
Hooke’s Law
describes the force exerted by a spring
F=k·x
F = force
x = stretch of the spring
k = spring constant
stiffer springs have bigger k’s
Normal orbits caused by gravity lead to
elliptical orbits. If gravity is replaced by a
spring, what will the orbits look like?
Hooke’s Law Orbits
Two masses, connected by a spring, are set spinning by a turntable apparatus.
HYPOTHESIS: When released in 0g, the masses will oscillate in and out as
they also orbit the system center of mass.
Detailed numerical model predictions are to be compared with high-speed video footage.
Construction & Testing
Ellington Field
Fiona, our wonderful NASA mentor!
Test Readiness Review (TRR)
Day One
Flight!
Flight ground track
A video frame.
Video was shot at 300 frames per second.
Twenty-six successful runs, testing a variety of
parameters (spring constant, masses, initial
RPM and axis location) were completed.
Flight 2 Run 16
Numerical
model
prediction
For more info...
Go to the HLOM project website for
– photos and video
– raw and analyzed data
– numerical models
– articles, papers and classroom activities as
they are written
http://academic.greensboroday.org/
~regesterj/data/rgo-HLOM/
MANY THANKS TO: Fiona Turett, our NASA/JSC mentor,
Flavio Mendez & Marie Wiggins at NSTA
the RGO and TFS teams at NASA, and
GDS for the financial support!