Navigator
Gravité, lois de Kepler, éléments orbitaux, vitesses, échappement, l'équation des fusées et comment les vaisseaux spatiaux voyagent entre les mondes.
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
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La gravité de Newton
- Newton's gravity · 12 min Achevée
One law explains falling apples, the Moon's orbit and the path of every planet. Fire Newton's cannon and find out how.
- Newton's gravity · 12 min Achevée
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Les lois de Kepler
- Kepler's laws · 14 min Achevée
Three rules found from careful observations in the early 1600s still describe every orbit, from moons to exoplanets.
- Kepler's laws · 14 min Achevée
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Éléments orbitaux
- Orbital elements · 14 min Achevée
Six numbers pin down any orbit in space: its size, shape, tilt, orientation and where the body is on it.
- Orbital elements · 14 min Achevée
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Vitesse orbitale : l’équation vis-à-vis
- Orbital speed: the vis-viva equation · 12 min Achevée
One short equation gives the speed of anything in orbit at any point, if you know how far it is and the size of its orbit.
- Orbital speed: the vis-viva equation · 12 min Achevée
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Escape velocity
- Escape velocity · 12 min Achevée
How fast do you need to go to leave a world for good? And why rockets do not actually need to reach it at the surface.
- Escape velocity · 12 min Achevée
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Pourquoi une orbite est une chute
- Why an orbit is a fall · 10 min Achevée
Astronauts float not because there is no gravity up there, but because they are falling all the time, and missing.
- Why an orbit is a fall · 10 min Achevée
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Atteindre l'orbite : le virage de gravité
- Reaching orbit · 12 min Achevée
Why rockets go up for only a few seconds, then spend ten minutes going sideways: the gravity turn, staging and orbital insertion.
- Reaching orbit · 12 min Achevée
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L'équation de la fusée et delta-v
- The rocket equation and delta-v · 12 min Achevée
Why rockets are mostly fuel, why they come in stages, and the one equation behind every mission's budget.
- The rocket equation and delta-v · 12 min Achevée
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Transferts de Hohmann
- Hohmann transfers: changing orbits · 12 min Achevée
To go higher you speed up, and then you arrive slower. The two-burn manoeuvre that moves satellites from low orbit to geostationary orbit.
- Hohmann transfers: changing orbits · 12 min Achevée
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Lancement des fenêtres
- Launch windows: the road to Mars · 12 min Achevée
You cannot aim at Mars, only at where Mars will be in eight months. Why Mars missions leave every 26 months, all at once.
- Launch windows: the road to Mars · 12 min Achevée
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Insertion orbitale: être capturé
- Orbital insertion: getting captured · 12 min Achevée
Arriving at a planet is the most dangerous minute of a mission: one burn decides whether you stay or fly past forever.
- Orbital insertion: getting captured · 12 min Achevée
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Gravity assists
- Gravity assists: the free slingshot · 12 min Achevée
How Voyager, Cassini and New Horizons stole speed from planets, and why it never breaks the conservation of energy.
- Gravity assists: the free slingshot · 12 min Achevée
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Points de Lagrange
- Lagrange points: balance in the sky · 11 min Achevée
Five places around every pair of worlds where a spacecraft can ride along for free, and why the James Webb Space Telescope lives at one of them.
- Lagrange points: balance in the sky · 11 min Achevée
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Rendez-vous et amarrage
- Rendezvous: catching the space station · 11 min Achevée
To catch something ahead of you in orbit, you drop lower and go slower-looking but faster. The counter-intuitive art of meeting in space.
- Rendezvous: catching the space station · 11 min Achevée
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Retour à la maison: réentrée
- Coming home: reentry · 11 min Achevée
A small push slows a spacecraft by a hundred metres per second, and the air takes care of the other 7.8 kilometres per second, as a fireball.
- Coming home: reentry · 11 min Achevée
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Porkchop plots
À venir bientôt
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Astéroïdes et comètes
À venir bientôt
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