Simulate three-dimensional spacecraft maneuvers like landing on another planet or docking with a space station with this fun model! Written instructions to build your own and use it for a science project are available on the Science Buddies website: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/SpaceEx_p050/space-exploration/cable-driven-spacecraft-motion-simulator?ytid=_bKn2_AAMnU&ytsrc=description
Science Buddies also hosts a library of instructions for over 1,500 other hands-on science projects, lesson plans, and fun activities for K-12 parents, students, and teachers! Visit us at https://www.sciencebuddies.org/?ytid=_bKn2_AAMnU&ytsrc=description to learn more.
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this is a cable driven spacecraft motion simulator scientists use simulators like these to move model spacecraft around in three dimensions and practice Maneuvers like landing on another planet or docking with a space station in this video I’ll explain how it works and how you can build your own for a science project written instructions are also available Linked In the video description to explain how this works let’s simplify and first demonstrate it in two Dimensions here I have a model satellite suspended by two strings so it can move around in a vertical plane but it can’t move back and forth its motion is constrained to a two-dimensional space instead of three dimensions to control the satellite’s motion in that vertical plane I can pull on or loosen the two cables however the relationship between the cable motion and the satellite motion is not very straightforward for example if you’re used to playing video games you might think that to move move up normally you would push up on the joystick or Arrow pad on a controller but in this case I don’t have a single input that can make the satellite move up if I want it to move up I have to pull on both cables at the same time if I want it to go down I have to loosen both of them and if I wanted to move left to right I have to pull on one while loosening the other one so I don’t have a direct relationship between my two inputs and the up and down and left to right motion of my satellite if I pull on just one of the cables while holding the other one steady then the satellite moves diagonally now is a good time to introduce the concept of degrees of freedom this is what scientists and Engineers use to describe the number of different ways or directions something can move an object that is free to move around in three-dimensional space has six degrees of freedom three of them are called translational or linear degrees of freedom I have front to back side to side and up and down these are also frequently called X Y and Z any diagonal motion can be accomplished as a combination of the other three translational motions the object can also rotate about three different axes these are frequently called the roll pitch and yaw axes in our example here with the satellite constrained to move in a vertical plane it only has three total degrees of Freedom two of them are translational it can move side to side or up and down and one of them is rotational in order to remain in the plane it can rotate like this about a single axis if I rotate like this or like this then I would be moving out of the plane so again in this configuration it has three degrees of freedom two translational and one rotational however I do not have independent control over all three of them with just two cables notice that no matter how I try pulling on the cables loosening and tightening both at the same time or holding one still when moving the other I can’t make the satellite stay in place and just rotate it will rotate slightly as I
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