physics homework help

Question

 calculate the acceleration of a saddle he that is orbiting earth at an altitude of 500 km. The earths radius is 6380 km. Show your work please 

Answer 1

I will set this up for you and you can crunch out the numbers.

 

R_e = mean radius of earth (given)

h = altitude above earth's surface (given)

R = radius of circular orbit = R_e + h

M = mass of earth (look up)

G = universal constant of gravitation (look up)

 

Then the magnitude of the centripetal acceleration that keeps the body in an orbit of radius R around the earth is

 

a = GM/R² = GM / (R_e + h)²

 

There is another way to solve this using Kepler's third law, if you are interested, but it is more complicated.