PHYSICS 141 Laboratory

Dr. Marco R. Plumley

Questions:
1. Click on the box next to "Vector" so it is checked (lower right)
2. Click "Start" and don't do anything. At what speed does the lander crash into the
moon?
Without doing anything when the simulator is started then the lander
crashes t the speed of 12.7 m/s.
3. Click on "Reset" and attempt to make a soft landing by toggling the space bar.
What happens if you give the Lander too much thrust? What happens if you give it
too little thrust?
When too much thrust is given, the lander moves away from moon with
increasing velocity and it keeps going with increasing velocity. When the
thrust is too less than the lander ends up with crash landing.
4. Once you land safely blast off then move left or right to a new landing zone.
Describe the sequence of maneuvers that you must execute to get the Lander to
move sideways and then carry out a soft landing that is nice and vertical.
First the lander should be given a thrust to reach good height and the
speed should be under control and constant. Then it should be tilted at 90
degree and when it seems that some clear grounds are available then it
should be tilted in opposite direction to ensure that the horizontal
component of the velocity is zero. Then it should be erected and vertical
soft landing is done with thrust control.
5. What color is the thrust vector and what color is the velocity vector? How can you
tell?
When thrust is applied, its constant unless the additional thrust is
applied. So, yellow vector must of the thrust vector. When a thrust is
applied then if there is net force acting after countering the gravitational
pull, the magnitude of the velocity will keep increasing. That is reflected
by green vector so it must be velocity vector.
6. When landing, is it better to let the Lander fall most of the way and then turn on
the thrusters to maximum to get it to slow down? Or is it better to have the
thrusters on low the whole time to keep the velocity from building up to much?
It will completely depend how high the lander is. If no thrust is applied
and the lander keep falling then it will attend very high velocity which will
be difficult to control at the end. If we apply low thrust during the whole
journey then we will be burning the fuel unnecessarily. So, the best option
seems is, putting the thrust on and off to keep the velocity under control
during the journey and then apply final thrust during last few meters.