The g-force is a measure of how much force acts on a person or an object compared with the normal weight force due to the Earth’s gravity. This means that the resultant force was about 5,300,000 N upwards. The engines produced a thrust at lift-off of 33,400,000 N (enough to lift 487 school buses!). The thrust needed to be greater than the weight force of nearly 28,700,000 N. To launch this enormous rocket off the ground, NASA used five F-1 rocket engines, the most powerful rocket engines ever flown. The total mass of the rocket was 2,923,387 kilograms (nearly 3000 tonnes!), which is about the same as the mass of 417 school buses. The diameter at the widest part was over 10 m (about the length of a classroom). The height of the rocket was 111 metres (longer than a rugby field). The Apollo 11 mission to the moon was launched in 1969 by a Saturn V (pronounced ‘Saturn five’) rocket. A suborbital rocket will keep moving upwards because of its momentum, but it will slow down until it momentarily stops and falls back to Earth The launch of a rocket to the Moon Once the thrust from the rocket engines finishes, the resultant force is now downwards. The resultant force is the sum of these individual forces. For every kilogram of mass, there is 9.8 newtons (N) of weight.Īs the rocket increases speed, there is a third force of drag that begins to increase. Weight is the force due to gravity pulling the rocket downwards towards the centre of the Earth.Thrust pushes the rocket upwards by pushing gases downwards in the opposite direction.There are two forces acting on a rocket at the moment of lift-off: The unbalanced force (also called resultant force) is the difference between the force(s) pushing in one direction and the force(s) pushing in the opposite direction. This means that the forces pushing an object in one direction are greater than the forces pushing it in the opposite direction. Unbalanced forces during lift-offįor an object to start moving, there needs to be an unbalanced force. The rocket will keep on not moving, as described by Newton’s first law.
This means that the force pulling it downwards ( gravity) is equal to the force pushing it upwards (support force of the ground). When a rocket is sitting on the launch pad and not moving, there are forces acting on it, but these forces are balanced. Also, an object in motion will continue to move at a constant speed in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force. Newton’s first law helps us understand how forces get objects such as rockets moving.Īn object at rest (not moving) will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force.
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