WEBVTT - How Satellites Work 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.560 Get in tech with Technology with tech Stuff from Stuff 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:15.960 stateolland Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.800 your lovable host, and today we're gonna do an episode. 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.720 That was a request from Matthew Aisles who wrote to 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.960 me on Twitter. He actually requested at two part episode 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.560 about satellites. Uh, and I think it's a great idea. 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.159 I don't know if I'll do a second part right away, 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:34.800 but this first part is going to be a bit 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:37.960 about the history of satellites, how they work in general, 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:42.360 and also some cool information about them, like how relativity 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:49.400 comes into play. I guess it's relatively cool. Whacketty smacketty do. Alright, 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.879 So let's talk about satellites and what they are. So 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:57.200 satellite is something that's in orbit around another object. And 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.600 of course Earth has had a satellite for billy of years. 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.720 That would be the Moon. That's a natural satellite. But 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:06.520 if we want to look at man made satellites, we 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.399 have to go back a few decades. And in fact, 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:14.520 the the foundation for man made satellites, the principles, the 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:18.640 idea of what would be required, go back well before 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:22.639 the space race ever started. That would be Isaac Newton 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.039 who came up with the idea of what would be 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:27.399 required to create a satellite. Now that's not what he 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:30.800 necessarily called it, but this was published in a famous 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:36.160 thought experiment back in seventeen twenty nine, and at the 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:40.199 time he was really concentrating on gravity, which is pretty 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:45.039 heavy stuff. So Newton's thought experiment was famous. People have 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:47.520 talked about this a lot. You've probably heard about it. 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:50.040 He said, what if you were to go at the 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.720 top of a really really tall mountain, and you build 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:56.800 a cannon on the top of that mountain, and you 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:01.080 aim that cannon so that the barrel is parallel with 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.840 the Earth below you, so it's at at the same 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:09.639 you know, same uh angle as the ground down at 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.080 the base of the mountain. You fire the cannon. The 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:17.800 cannonball flies out and it moves away from the cannon, 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:21.400 but it also starts to fall because gravity has been 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:23.519 pulling on the cannonball the whole time. You know, the 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:25.400 gravity was pulling on the cannonball when it was in 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:27.679 the cannon. It's pulling on the cannonball now that it's 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.800 emerged from the cannon. Eventually, this cannonball is going to 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.440 fall to the ground. And by eventually it's it's based 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.960 upon the altitude that the cannonball already is at. Uh. 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.760 Doesn't have anything to do with the forward velocity so 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:44.600 much as the altitude. He said, Well, what if you 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:47.320 were to to pack more gunpowder in this cannon and 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.799 you fire it, might it will go further because it's 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.720 moving at a forward velocity that's that's greater than the 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:58.160 previous one. But it still will eventually fall to the earth. Uh. Really, 0:02:58.200 --> 0:02:59.960 in that same amount of time, it's just gonna be 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.040 further out from their first shot. But then you keep 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.600 packing more and more gunpowder in, and eventually you pack 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.320 enough gunpowder in so that when you fire the cannonball, 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.639 it is flying out at afford velocity at a at 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.960 a rate that is equal to how the Earth is 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:21.200 curving away from the cannonball. So, in other words, the 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.320 cannonballs falling toward the Earth, but the Earth is curving 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.000 away from the cannonball at that same rate, So the 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:31.720 cannonball never falls down to hit the Earth's surface because 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.160 the Earth is falling away from the cannonball at the 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.200 same rate that the cannonball itself is falling. This would 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:39.720 mean that eventually you would shoot yourself in the back 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.160 because the cannonball would make a full rotation around the 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.120 Earth and come back to its point of origin. At least, 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:49.160 that was the thought experiment that Newton had proposed, which 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.800 seemed like a really clever idea, but there was no 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.520 practical means of testing it or putting it to any 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:58.680 use back in Newton's day, it was just an interesting idea. 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:03.440 It would not be until October four, nineteen fifty seven, 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.120 and that's when the then Soviet Union made history by 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.520 launching the first man made satellite into Earth orbit, and 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:14.240 that satellite was the spot Nick one. But it was 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:19.479 fairly simple. It was a ball that was silver in color. 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:23.000 It was about twenty two point eight inches in diameter, 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.680 which is around fifty eight centimeters, so not very big, 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.960 and it weighed a hundred eighty three point nine pounds 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.720 or eighty three point six ms. The body was made 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.200 out of an aluminum alloy, and the shell of that 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:40.520 aluminum was just two millimeters thick. It was actually two 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.240 hemispheres of a globe that were connected together by thirty 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:50.240 six bolts around the circumference of those hemispheres. It had 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.960 two antennas and each antenna had two beams, so like 0:04:55.040 --> 0:05:00.640 four prongs extending backward from the center from the bear itself, 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:04.080 almost like it had four legs. One pair of antenna 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:06.840 where seven point nine feet long or about two point 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:09.760 four meters, the other pair was twelve point eight feet 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:14.560 long or three point nine meters. Inside the satellite, there 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.680 wasn't a whole lot, not compared to what had originally 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:21.520 been planned to put in the satellite. Inside it was 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:25.000 a radio transmitter so it could communicate back to Earth, 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.760 had three silver zinc batteries that would provide power. It 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:33.640 had a couple of different switches inside of it, remote switches, 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.880 a thermal system fan was in there, a controlled thermal switch, 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.680 and a barometric switch were in there. So and it 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.720 was also filled with nitrogen gas to create internal pressure. Essentially, 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:48.520 the only things this this was really the only thing 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.920 this this um satellite could do was monitor its own systems, 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.640 like how hot was it? Or cold was it? What 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.600 was the pressure like? And then it would beam down 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:02.719 information in a series of beeps. In fact, my former 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:06.159 co host Chris Palette used to refer to Sputnik as 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:10.719 the thing what beats. It actually sounded a bit like 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:18.080 this so if you had had a ham radio back 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:22.279 in n and you were tuning in, you could actually 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.920 pick up that signal as sput Nick passed overhead, because 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.040 it was broadcasting on a frequency that was within the 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:33.000 citizen band radio frequency, and that meant that people could 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:36.600 actually listen in as sput Nick went overhead. It only 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.360 took ninety eight minutes for the satellite to go around 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.120 the Earth, so every hour and a half or so 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:44.880 you would be able to pick this up. And it 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:50.120 freaked people out, particularly in the United States. People were 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.920 freaking out because they were able to actually hear evidence 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.560 of the Soviet Union's ability to send an object into space, 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.000 and if they could do that, there was also the 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.000 fear that they could perhaps fire a ballistic missile, maybe 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.440 with a nuclear warhead at the United States that they 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:12.960 had had now had the capability to fire massive destructive 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:17.160 weapons at the US from a world away, and at 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:20.920 this time the Cold War was going on strong, so 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.960 it caused more than a little stir. It was the 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:29.200 fuel for tons of different science fiction films. Uh they're 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:33.080 all these different um uh instructional movies that explained what 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.720 you need to do in the case of a nuclear war, 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:41.560 and most of them were freakishly optimistic. At any rate, 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.480 it propelled the United States into a new era of 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.640 research and development. The US had already been planning on 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:52.720 getting into the space race, but this meant that suddenly 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:56.720 everything was cranked up to eleven, as spinal Tap would say. 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:01.640 So it really literally launched the space race between the 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:05.600 United States and the Soviet Union. Now for the story 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.640 of Sputnik itself, you actually have to go back much 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:13.640 further back to the nineteen forties in fact, or even earlier, 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:17.480 when you're looking at the the rocket program out of 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:22.880 the Soviet Union during World War Two. So officially you 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:26.080 would argue that nineteen fifty two was was what got 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:30.560 Sputnik itself going. Within the Soviet Union, that's when an 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:35.160 organization called the International Council of Scientific Unions called for 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.120 artificial satellites to be launched in order to study solar activity, 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.280 which was going to be reaching a peak in nineteen 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:46.520 fifty eight, and the United States started planning a launch 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.120 at least as far back as nineteen fifty five, and 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.880 their project was called Vanguard, and pretty much the world 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:56.600 was looking at the United States as the leader it 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.080 was going to be the US that would be launching 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.800 a UH satellite sometime around the summer of nineteen fifty seven. 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.559 But the Soviet Union thought, hey, we have the opportunity 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:10.240 to show up our rival, and so they really put 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:13.640 Sputnik on the fast track. Now to to look at 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.400 what was going on in the Soviet Union going back 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:19.079 to the nineteen thirties and nineteen forties, there was a 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:23.640 man named Mikhail ticknor Revov. I'm gonna mess up that 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.960 name all the time. Tick Hanravov who led a team 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.160 of scientists to design, build, and launch spot Nik one. 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:34.240 But their early work was really looking at missile systems, 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:38.400 ballistic missile missile systems for military use. UH. They just 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.120 saw the potential for using those same systems to launch 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.520 satellite into space. And they were really looking at the 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:48.360 possibility of using multi stage rockets in order to get 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:52.680 the right amount of acceleration to push an object into orbit. 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.120 And they were often relying on research performed not just 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:59.800 by their team, but by other scientific teams around the world. 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.600 Often this was information that we're that was pulled in 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:08.200 through espionage. It wasn't necessarily the scientific community openly sharing 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:12.719 this information. And originally UH they were really looking at 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.439 how can we make missiles better missiles for the Soviet Union. 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.760 The group would form in nineteen forty six, so not 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.160 long after the end of World War Two, and the 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:27.080 team worked on satellite plans pretty much in secret because 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.880 they weren't sure if the Soviet government would actually appreciate 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.760 their interest in scientific research that did not have an 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:38.640 immediate military application. Now keep in mind that until nineteen 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:42.640 fifty three, the Soviet Union was being led by Joseph Stalin, 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:51.240 and he was an incredibly brutal dictator, and paranoia was 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.720 rampant in the Soviet Union. There were stories about secret 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.640 police and kidnappings in the middle of the night. People 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:01.680 lived in constant fear of being arrested or executed. But 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.559 after Stalin died in March nineteen fifty three, people were 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.440 able to concentrate on something beyond just not being noticed. 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.120 It's hard to imagine how terrifying that time must have been, 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.600 but it's probably no coincidence that it was nineteen fifty 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:22.160 four when the Soviet scientists stopped hiding the fact that 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.280 they were performing this satellite research. They would talk about 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:29.480 it openly, and the project received support from various scientific 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.280 societies within the USSR, but it wouldn't be until nineteen 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:37.000 fifty six that they received official approval from the Kremlin. 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.560 So if you want to hear a really amazing story 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:46.000 about bureaucracy, science, politics, and how messed up everything was 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:49.040 in the Soviet Union in the nineteen fifties, you should 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:54.800 really research the full story of spot Nik, because it's 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:59.200 amazing that this project ever really got a lot of 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.600 of support. In large part the support was coming from 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:06.920 the Soviet Union wanting to demonstrate its power, not to 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.640 pursue science, but in order to show the rest of 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.040 the world where the Big Bear don't mess with us. 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:18.280 There were a whole bunch of different departments that all 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.880 worked on the design of the spot Nick project, and 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.480 it's kind of interesting to see how diverse this group was. 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.479 So those those different departments included the Academy of Sciences 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:34.160 of USSR, which oversaw the scientific research and development of 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:38.439 the project. There was the organization Okay b DASH one, 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:43.000 which was the U s s R Experimental Design Bureau. 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:47.520 It's essentially was the equivalent of our DARPA here in 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:50.880 the United States. It was a research and development program 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.080 that really took big risks to see if they could 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:59.040 find big reward from scientific research implemented in practical ways. 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:03.199 That particularly, that particular department fell under the direction of 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:07.560 the Ministry of Defense Industry, so that group was responsible 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:11.760 for designing the body of the satellite, and in the 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:16.480 satellite biz we refer to this as the bus. The 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:20.680 bus is essentially the the body or shell inside which 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:24.599 all the instrumentation exists, apart from you know, some instrumentation 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:26.920 obviously has to be on the outside of the bus, 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:30.480 like any sort of imagery or antenna, but you get 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:33.720 what I mean. Next, we have the Ministry of Radio Industry. 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.920 They were in charge of flight control systems, radio and 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:42.160 telemetry systems. Then you had the Ministry of ship Building. 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.640 The ship Building Ministry was responsible for designing the gyroscopes 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.280 that would go in the satellite. You had the Ministry 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:54.400 of Machine Building. They were responsible for a ground processing, transport, fueling, 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.880 and launch hardware. You had the Ministry of Defense itself, 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:01.200 which was in charge of launch operations. You had the 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:05.719 Ministry of Avia Aviation Industry which was in charge of 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:09.520 the tracking systems, and the Special Committee of the Soviet 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.880 of Ministers, which were all about the management and coordination 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:17.240 of the program overall. Now, originally spot Nick was referred 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.440 to as Object D and it was supposed to be 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:25.520 a much larger, much more sophisticated satellite. It was not 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:27.920 supposed to just be the thing what beeps. It was 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.479 supposed to have a lot of instrumentation for actual scientific 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:36.320 study with a collection of useful instruments. But the projects 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:40.600 suffered several setbacks in the design process that kept pushing 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.120 back when they would be able to launch, and there 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.560 was a growing concern that the United States was going 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:48.760 to be able to launch a satellite in orbit starting 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.240 on July first, nine seven. So they had a new goal. 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:55.320 They wanted to strip down their ideas to just the 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.800 most essential elements to try and beat America to the punch, 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:04.400 and they did. They were able to create a much smaller, 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:07.760 more basic satellite, and they were able to launch it 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.480 before the United States could send their own satellite into space, 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.640 and they set a precedent, and in fact only did 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:17.960 the USSR beat the USA, they did it twice. The 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.480 second satellite, which was spot Nick two, contained the first 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.840 life form sent into Earth orbit, and that was the 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:29.840 dog named Lyca and Lica was always destined to die 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.160 during this mission. There was no plan for Lyca to 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:40.200 return to Earth safely. Uhlica was going to die inside 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:45.400 the satellite, either by starvation or thirst. It was just 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.080 no or suffocation. That was just known that this was 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:50.640 a one way trip for the dog. Um the dog 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:54.080 likely died due to overheating fairly early in the mission, 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:58.000 based upon what the instrumentation was saying. And there have 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.960 been a lot of web comics, card tunes, and an 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:03.720 amazing song, more than one song, but there's a great 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.400 song called Space Doggedy which was written by Jonathan Colton 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:11.400 and obviously has uh a lot of influence from Space 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.160 Oddity from David Bowie Space Oddity in there. Space Doggedy, 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:18.080 great song. There's actually a video on YouTube someone's put 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.920 together with actual footage of like a from spot Nick two. 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.960 And that's all I'm going to say about that, because 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.160 otherwise I'm gonna get all choked up because to me, 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:31.800 it's a very sad story and necessary story. I totally 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:36.680 understand why we need to use animals to test the systems, 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:40.080 because clearly you can't just put a human in there 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.080 and hope everything turns out all right. But it's still 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:45.960 a very sad story to me because I'm I'm a 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:50.920 squishy dog lover. I have a dog, and I when 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:52.880 I look at my dog and imagine what Likeca was 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.880 going through, I just fall to pieces. At any rate, 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.280 the United States response to sput Nick was to go 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.800 back to the drawing board. They had their Vanguard design 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.120 that they had planned to launch, but that now felt 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:10.320 that it was no longer a strong enough offering. They 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:13.879 needed to come up with a better satellite to really 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:19.119 be a good response to the Soviet Union's project. So 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:23.560 the new USA project was called Explorer, and it was 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:28.960 led by a rocket scientist named Werner von Brown. Von 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:35.640 Brown was a brilliant physicist, a very intelligent rocket scientist, 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:40.399 but he had an incredibly dark past. UH. He was 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.440 born in Germany in nineteen twelve and he was part 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:46.440 of the Rocket Society as early as nineteen twenty nine. 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:51.000 As the Nazis gained power in Germany during the thirties, 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.439 von Brown chose to work for the German Army to 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:58.200 develop missiles. He wanted to continue his research and work, 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:02.280 and it seemed like the UH the most opportune place, 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:05.879 and his work was instrumental in the development of the 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:11.160 V two ballistic missile, which was a tool the Nazis 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.280 used to some effect, perhaps not as great as it 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.439 could have been, but certainly was a destructive weapon that 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:22.440 caused a lot of damage and death. He was eventually 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:26.480 awarded an honorary rank in the s s by Heinrich Himler. 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.840 It is said, however, that von Brown only accepted that 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.560 rank because he and his team were worried that Himmler 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:38.000 would be angry if he had declined it. So at 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.679 least some accounts state that von Brown didn't share the 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:46.240 political ideology of the Nazis. He just saw this as 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.320 the opportunity for him to actually do his work, and 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.480 if he didn't join the Nazis then he would not 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:56.919 be able to do his work. Von Brown realized that 0:18:56.960 --> 0:18:59.560 Germany would lose the war. I think a lot of 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.160 people realized that it was getting to a point where 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:05.520 it was undeniable, and so he made plans to surrender 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:09.200 himself and his team of around five rockets scientists to 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.399 the Allies and offered to do research for the United 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:17.080 States to help them develop their ballistic missiles. Further so, 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:21.120 Fan Brown and his scientists would create a rocket research 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:25.159 center that originally fell under the guidance of the United 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:28.480 States Army, but eventually it would get shifted to a 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:33.480 new organization called NASA, which was founded mainly in reaction 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:37.720 to spot Nick and really be part of the space race. 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:42.520 Explorer one would launch on January thirty one, nineteen eight, 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:48.200 and it made an actual scientific discovery on its orbital flight. 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:53.080 It discovered magnetic radiation belts around the Earth, which are 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:57.200 now called the Van Allen Belt after one of the 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:02.480 lead researcher on the project. Now, these days, satellites are 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:06.920 way more sophisticated than spot Nick or even Explorer one, 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.480 and they typically use solar panels to capture solar energy 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:13.320 and convert it into electricity that is used to charge 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.320 batteries for power. Some of them actually use fuel cells 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:20.840 rather than batteries to generate electricity. And we've used nuclear 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:24.240 power in some probes that we've sent away from our planet, 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:26.360 but in general we tend to be a bit skittish 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:30.200 about the idea of putting nuclear power into stuff that's 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:34.800 going to be orbiting our own planet. Satellites tend to 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:37.520 have some pretty sophisticated stuff inside them. These days like 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.239 computer control systems, which were well beyond the abilities of 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:45.800 the early satellites which had electro mechanical controls. But now 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:50.840 we've got computer control systems, radio communications, attitude control systems. 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:54.879 Attitude in this case isn't about personality, but rather the 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.240 satellites orientation with respect to the position of the Earth. 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.919 And satellites can have different shaped orbits. Some have circular orbits, 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:07.159 which are very regular and uh and predictable, but some 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:11.399 have elliptical orbits. And elliptical orbits are interesting because a 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.119 satellite will travel at different speeds along its orbital path. 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:18.639 So there are two points along that path that we 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.840 call the foci of the elliptical orbit. The point that's 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.960 closest to the planet is the peerage, and that's the 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.120 point at which the satellite will be moving fastest through 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:32.600 its orbit. It's like think of it like the sling 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:37.200 shot effect. The furthest point from a planet. The furthest 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:39.639 point in the orbit of the satellites orbit from a 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:42.680 planet is the apogee, and that's where the satellite will 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:46.960 move the slowest in its orbital path. Now, launching a 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:51.000 satellite into orbit obviously requires rockets and in a rocket launch, 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:55.080 a special system is used called the inertial guidance system, 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.560 which calculates the adjustments needed to push a satellite into 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:03.119 the correct orbit. Talk about the different orbits in a second. Typically, 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:07.040 rockets are fired so that they head eastward, and that 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.679 means that the Earth's rotation gives those rockets a speed boost. 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:13.600 It's like the rockets are actually flying faster than they 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:15.920 really are because of the relative motion of the Earth. 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:18.240 If you were to launch your rocket at the equator, 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:21.159 you would get the biggest boost because the Earth bulgeon 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:25.120 is out there. It's the largest diameter. So here's how 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:27.800 you would determine the boost you get to your speed. 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:31.200 You take the Earth's circumference, which is about four thousand, 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:36.200 nine hundred miles or forty thousand, sixty kilometers. You figure 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:38.480 out how fast the Earth rotates, which is one full 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:42.480 rotation in approximately twenty four hours, which gives us a 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.160 speed of around one thousand, thirty eight miles per hour 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:48.159 or one thousand, six hundred sixty nine kilometers per hour. 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:51.920 That's the rotational speed of the Earth. That's typically that's 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.119 actually at the equator. If you were to look at 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:57.679 a launch facility at Cape canaveral. The rotational speed is 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.879 different because you're further north of the equator. You're not 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:05.080 at the thickest part of the Earth. Therefore, the circumference 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:11.199 is smaller and you have a slower speed, so a 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:14.520 slower rotational speed at that point, so it's closer to 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:17.879 around eight miles per hour or one thousand, four hundred 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:21.000 forty kilometers per hour. But that speed boost gives us 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:23.639 a big help. So to get the satellite into orbit, 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:26.800 you have to be going wicked fast, but not as 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:29.920 fast as what you would need to actually escape Earth's gravity. 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:32.800 So if you wanted to go out into space and 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:36.159 beyond Earth's gravity, you're leaving Earth orbit, you're heading out 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:38.480 to Mars or something. You would have to accelerate to 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:41.480 at least twenty five thousand, thirty nine miles per hour 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:46.439 or forty kilometers per hour to escape Earth's gravity and 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:50.439 enter outer space. Putting a satellite in orbit requires less speed, 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:54.000 and it all depends upon which orbit you're trying to 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:58.119 insert the satellite into. The orbits determine the speed, so 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:03.400 lower orbits require faster speeds, which might seem counterintuitive at first, 0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:06.359 but you gotta remember those lower orbits that that speed 0:24:06.520 --> 0:24:11.320 is meant to counteract the gravitational pull of Earth so 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:14.400 that the object in orbit remains in orbit, doesn't get 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:17.679 pulled back down to the ground. So when you're closer 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:20.679 to Earth, the force of gravity is greater. As you 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:24.720 probably remember, gravity is dependent upon two things, the mass 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:28.399 of two objects and their relative distance to one another. 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:34.000 So as distance increases gravitation gravitational pull decreases, and you 0:24:34.040 --> 0:24:37.600 don't need to counteract that with more velocity to make 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:40.639 sure an object stays within its orbital path and doesn't 0:24:40.680 --> 0:24:45.159 deteriorate and fall into the Earth. So higher orbits require 0:24:45.200 --> 0:24:47.600 lower speeds, and if you get far enough out there, 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:49.879 you can have a satellite that orbits at the same 0:24:49.920 --> 0:24:55.159 speed as Earth's rotation. Uh those would be geostationary orbits. 0:24:55.160 --> 0:24:58.240 They would appear to be directly above a fixed point 0:24:58.280 --> 0:25:00.720 on the Earth and they would not move from that point. 0:25:01.600 --> 0:25:04.280 I'll get into that more in it just a second. First, 0:25:04.359 --> 0:25:08.480 let's talk about the various types of orbits from an altitude, 0:25:08.520 --> 0:25:11.439