Space X
Space X, or Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport service company that was founded by Elon Musk in 2002. As a private company, it designs, manufactures, and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. And the goal of the company is to revolutionize space technology and bring people to live on other planets. The company also accomplished a lot of achievements with two of their vehicles, one is Falcon 9 rocket, and the other one is the Dragon Spacecraft. Also, they are still working on Falcon Heavy, and they describe it as” The world’s Most Powerful Rocket”.
Falcon 9
Falcon 9 is the first rocket completely designed and developed in the 21st century. It is a two-stage rocket designed to transport satellites and the dragon spacecraft into orbit. The Falcon 9 has a mass of 541,300kg, so it has a weight of 5304740N or 5304.74kN.(w=541300kg X 9.8 m/s^2 =5304740 N) In order for the rocket to moving upward against the force of gravity, the rocket needs to have very powerful engines. So, the company incorporates 9 Merlin Engines in the first stage, which gives the rocket a 6,806kN thrust at sea level. Therefore, the net force moving upward when liftoff would be 1501.26kN.(6806kN+(-5304.74kN)=1501.26kN) By the Newton’s Second Law of Motion: F=ma, the Falcon 9 then has an acceleration of 0.002773 km/s^2 or 2.773 meters/s^2.(a=1591.26kN/541300kg=0.002773 km/s^2)
Falcon Heavy
Falcon Heavy is the newest rocket the company is working on, and it will be lift off later this year. From the data provided by the company, it has a mass of 1,394,000kg, which is more than two times greater than Falcon 9. So, how many engines it needed in order to lift off? Well, as we see in the photo above, it has 3 cores in the first stage. And the company says it has 27 Merlin engines, which provided 20,418kN thrust at sea level. Now, let’s calculate the weight of the giant rocket: 1,394,000kg X 9.8ms^-2=13661200N, or equivalently 13661.2kN. Now follow the same mechanism as we did before: 20418kN-13661.2kN=1,394,000kg X acceleration, we have acceleration=4.85 meters/second^2
In conclusion, we know that while the rocket burning fuels to provide the energy, it’s mass decreases. And as the altitude increases, the gravity also decreases. So, as a result, the acceleration of the rockets would eventually increase because the decrease in mass and the increase in the force.
Resources:
http://www.spacex.com/news/2013/03/26/merlin-engines
http://www.spacex.com/falcon9
http://www.spacex.com/falcon-heavy
http://www.spacex.com/
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