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Week 1 Microgravity and the International Space Station

Completion requirements

This image is entitled the ‘parabolic flight of an aircraft’. It shows a graph where the vertical axis is labelled with altitude and has units of feet from 24 000 to 34 000 in increments of 2000 feet. The horizontal axis is labelled as manoeuvre time and has units of seconds from zero to 65 in increments of 20 seconds, 45 seconds and 65 seconds. A parabolic curve starts from the time of zero seconds and an altitude of 24 000 feet. This curve increases to a maximum of an altitude of 32 000 feet at a time between 20 and 45 seconds. The curve then decreases to a minimum at a time of 65 seconds to an altitude of 24 000 feet. For the first stage of the flight, between a time of zero seconds and 20 seconds, this area of the graph is labelled with 1.8g. Between the times of 20 seconds and 45 seconds, this area of the graph is labelled with zero g. For the final part of the graph, between 45 seconds and 65 seconds, the area of the graph is labelled with 1.8g. Before the zero g part of the graph, the plane’s trajectory is 45 degrees nose high; after this zero g part of the graph, the plane’s trajectory is 45 degrees nose low.