3

I was reading the article on J002E3, and it mentions that most other S-IVB have entered the atmosphere and mostly burned until reduced to relatively small pieces. They did, however, enter the atmosphere with less energy than J002E3 would have coming from a Solar orbit and (I assume) entered on more or less tangential trajectories.

The question is, would such a stage of a rocket burn more or less, if it were to enter head-on into the atmosphere?

Nathan Tuggy
  • 4,566
  • 5
  • 34
  • 44
Martin Argerami
  • 171
  • 1
  • 6
  • 1
    The steeper the entry, the higher the peak heating, but the shorter the heating period. I believe something like an S-IVB stage would burn completely regardless of entry angle. – Russell Borogove Feb 09 '18 at 01:25

0 Answers0