Elon Musk's adventure in space | By Meg Urry for CNNOpinion
Meg Urry is the Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Yale University and recent president of the American Astronomical Society. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers. View more opinion on CNN.
On Saturday, SpaceX launched the unmanned Crew Dragon capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket. A little more than 24 hours later, the Crew Dragon docked successfully with the International Space Station. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and his team are right to celebrate this tremendous achievement. Although the relative motions are slow, the ISS zips along at about 5 miles every second, or approximately 18,000 mph. To dock with the ISS, Crew Dragon had to reach the same speed in exactly the same orbit -- no easy feat -- and to line up precisely with the docking port, approaching slowly enough to not damage either vehicle.This kind of thing is both very difficult and surprisingly old hat.
Watch: SpaceX launches 64 satellites 01:27That's because orbital dynamics are governed by gravity. As any first-year physics student learns, the speed of a satellite and the radius of its orbit are tightly linked. So, when a spacecraft uses its thrusters to speed up a bit and catch up to another spacecraft, the radius of its orbit automatically increases, meaning the laws of physics move the chase craft away even as it aims for the target craft.
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