IB Physics HL D.1.14 Orbital Speed Question Bank

Practise IB Physics HL D.1.14 by solving circular-orbit speed, period, energy and galaxy-rotation problems.

[Maximum number: 2]

The graph shows the variation with time of the height of the International Space Station (ISS) during a 30-day period.

Figure for Question D.1.14 (HL)—Orbital speed question 1 — IB Physics HL

The following data are available:

\begin{aligned} \text { Mass of Earth } & =5.98 \times 10^{24} \mathrm{~kg} \\ \text { Mass of the ISS } & =4.20 \times 10^{5} \mathrm{~kg} \\ \text { Radius of the Earth } & =6.38 \times 10^{6} \mathrm{~m} \end{aligned}

For the 30-day period indicated in the graph the loss of total energy of the ISS is $4.5 \times 10^{9} \mathrm{~J}$ .

Show, using the average height during the 30-day period, that the speed of the ISS is about $8 \times 10^{3} \mathrm{~ms}^{-1}$ .

Average height 417.5 km
$v=\sqrt{\frac{6.67 \times 10^{-11} \times 5.98 \times 10^{24}}{(6.38+0.4175) \times 10^{6}}} \text { OR } 7.7 \times 10^{3} \mathrm{~ms}^{-1}$

Accept $417.5 \pm 0.3$ for MP1

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D.1.14 (HL)—Orbital speed question 1