Aerodynamic deceleration at velocities near the escape velocity
This article presents basic procedures for calculating the trajectory of a spaceship that uses only the Earth’s atmosphere to reduce its speed, allowing it to land on the Earth’s surface successfully. The first flight of the ARTEMIS program, which took place from November 16 to December 11 2022, was used as a template for the calculations. All calculations are performed in the symbolic algebra program Maple. To simplify the calculations, forces that have a less significant impact on the shape of...