Rocket Science

For students enrolled in Professor Tonnis ter Veldhuis course it literally is all about rocket science. In this physics course the lab is learning how to design, simulate, build, and launch a high-power rocket. The course covers standard material such as Newton’s laws, conservation of energy, linear momentum, and angular momentum, oscillations and orbital dynamics, but with a strong focus on applying these basic physics principles to rocket propulsion and flight. Students explore the dynamics of past and planned space agency missions designed to investigate asteroids, planets and their moons, and comets.