One of the crucial tasks of all ATVs is Station reboosting. Here’s a very interesting and fun-scientific video that shows what it’s like to be inside the ISS when it’s being accelerated – in this case, not by ATV but it’s the same effect. The Station accelerates forward while the astronauts – who are in free-flight orbit around Earth (albeit in side the station) – drift backwards, relative to the Station. Newton was really right!
Caption from ReelNASA: As the International Space Station is boosted into a higher orbit, Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum and Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov float freely to demonstrate the acceleration of the orbiting complex.
Uploaded by ReelNASA on 27 Oct 2011
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Hi Edoardo,
Great videos and article! I like it very much, however, I think the sentence “Newton was really right!” is misleading (or I misundertand why it is quoted), none of the laws of Newton applies to non-inertial systems and the ISS, since it is subject to acceleration, is non-inertial, specially in the case of being reboosted (gravity+booster pulling/pushing together).
I think some people got confused and thinks that 1st law of Newton is acting when there is a relative movement between the astronaut and the ISS. This is not the case, the station is pulled up and the astronaut stays following the same orbit, an orbit is not described in the laws of Newton, he is only talking about rectilinear and uniform movement, and an orbit is a ellipse.
The same thing happens everytime a car accelerates, the driver is pulled back… but it is nicer when you see it in the ISS
Thanks for the bolg, really cool!
@Jorge: At first I was mystified! What force was at play ? According to your clarification it is the force of gravitation – in this case from earth. When the station accelerates, the gravitation holds the astronauts back.
Am I correct?
if yes, I am very surprised that the gravitational force from earth has such obvious pull out there where they are otherwise weightless. I find it hard to believe.
Cheers/Jon
Hi Jon,
Be aware that they seam weightless because they are “falling”togheter with the station. Value of g force on ISS is still about 95% of that on earth’s surface.
Cheers, Davide