Cherry Schultz 1

Introduction
Many people seem to think that there is no gravity in space. Is this true? Thats
exactly what the following testing will figure out. Is there gravity in space, and why would
there be gravity? Does it make sense that there could be gravity in space? If there was
then how could people on the ISS float around with no restraint? Could gravity on a
satellite be because of the planet its orbiting, and could it be based on its distance from
that planet? The testing will reveal how much gravity there is on 10 different satellites
that have orbited Earth or that are currently orbiting Earth. The purpose of this testing is
to also find the acceleration of these satellites due to its gravity, if there is any. Hopefully
all of these questions will be answered; as it is truly interesting how there could be
gravity based on the fact that people float in space.
Background
ISS: The ISS is a space port for many international spacecraft as over 100 launches
have been conducted on it. The ISS is as long as a football field, and weighs nearly 1
million pounds. The robot arm on it lifts nearly of a million pounds. There is also an
acre of solar panels on the ISS thats produces up to 90 kilowatts of power. The ISS
also has fifty-two computers that run its systems and 2.3 million lines of code to operate
it. This is truly a complicated satellite that exemplifies the advancements that mankind
has made through time.

MIR: The MIR is a Russian satellite; it was launched while they were the Soviet Union
though. This satellite was the first to raise a crop of wheat. MIR is a symbol of Russian
success in space; it translates as world, peace, and village. The MIR is said to have a

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strange appearance. It has been described as a dragonfly, and also a hedgehog.
Despite its strange appearance, the MIR set every record in long-duration flight. The
longest mission in space was set by a man on the MIR, he lived in orbit for over 747
days.

Hubble Telescope: Hubble is a telescope in space that is one of NASAs most

successful missions in space that helped unveil many things about the uncharted
universe. Hubble has made amazing discoveries. It discovered the age of the universe
and also the existence of dark energy. The idea of a telescope in outer space is much
better for viewing the universe as it is above the earths atmosphere and allows for
clearer vision of everything.

Skylab: Skylab was Americas first space satellite. It was sent up in 1973 and designed
to stay in space forever. This was not the case, though, as it burned up in the earths
atmosphere in 1979. This satellite performed many experiments in space and was a sad
failure the day it was destroyed. The US even offered the first person to bring a piece of
the lab delivered to its offices a $10,000 prize.

Sputnik: In 1957, the worlds first artificial satellite was put into orbit for 98 minutes. This
satellite was the Sputnik 1. After it was launched, the US feared the Russians would use
this technology to carry nuclear bombs to the US from Europe, so America started

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defending themselves. Soon after the Sputnik 1 launched, the Russians launched the
Sputnik II, which carried a dog named Laika. The first Sputnik was a 58 cm sphere with
four antennas attached to the sides.

Salyut 2: The Salyut 2 was a Soviet space station. It was designed as a military station.
Upon launch, it orbited the earth at a low altitude. Less than two weeks into its mission,
its orbit decayed and re-entered the atmosphere, with no crew having visited it. This reentry was caused by a depressurizing, which made the altitude control system
malfunction.

Salyut 5: The Salyut 5 was the third and final Almaz space station used for the Soviet
military. There were four manned missions planned to take place on the Salyut, each
with two cosmonauts operating. The first two were successful while the third failed
docking to the Salyut. Also, the fourth mission was never attempted.

Terra: Terra is a multi-national space craft that is used for scientific research in a sun
synchronous orbit around earth. Terra contains remote sensors to monitor the Earths
state, like climate. This helps scientists understand the impact of pollution. In 2008 the
Terra was hacked, but the hackers never issued any code to the satellite. First in
NASAs Earth observing system.

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Aqua: The Aqua is a NASA owned satellite that studies the cycles of water on earth.
This is the second of the Earth observing system. It has six instruments to study water.
They measure snow, ice, humidity, temperature, radiant energy, volcano activity. Aqua
means water in latin, which makes sense because this satellite studies so much that
has to do with water cycles.

Aura: The Aura is the third major component in the Earth observing system; it studies air
quality, ozone layer, and climate. Aura means air in Latin, as this satellite studies much
with the air quality of Earth. The Aura carries four instruments to help in its study
including HIRDLS, MLS, OMI, and TES.

Galaxy 15: The galaxy 15 was used to provide communication services to North
America. It got off track, drifting into other satellites paths in 2010, but it rebooted and
responded to commands again. In 2011, testing resumed with the Galaxy 15.

Moon: The moon was a huge milestone for planet Earth when America took its first
steps on it. America and the Soviet Union had a space race to compete to be the first
on the moon. The moon is the closest planet-like structure to Earth. Many missions
have been made to reach the moon, and most of them have been successful. As of now
there is no need to visit the moon anymore, though, and NASA has made efforts to
expand its space exploration program.

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Data
Table 1
Data for satellites
Satteli
te

Mass(kg
)

Perigee

Accel
(g)

Percen
t of g

ISS

415000

409000

416000

6783500

8.66

88.36

MIR

129700

354000

374000

6735000

8.78

89.64

Hubble

11110

551400

55600

6674500

99372.83
662548.2
9

8.94

91.27

Skylab

77088

434000

441900

6808950

8.59

87.70

Sputnik
Saylut
2
Saylut
5

83.6

215000

939000

6948000

8.25

84.23

9.04

92.26

6617000

690.05
167271.8
5
172910.9
0

18500

257000

278000

6638500

19000

223000

269000

9.10

92.86

Terra

4864

705000

725000

7086000

38599.56

7.94

80.98

Aqua

2934

691000

708000

7070500

23385.73

7.97

81.33

Aura

2970

708000

710000

7080000

23609.18

7.95

81.11

Apegee

Avg Dist
(m)

Fg
3593614.
53
1139346.
51

Table 1 above shows all of the data for the satellites which was found using the
equations from many of the Appendices. The mass of the satellites were found online,
along with the distance from Earth. The radius of Earth was then added to the distance
to find the distance from the center of Earth. This distance was then used along with
Plancks constant to find the acceleration of gravity on the satellite. The acceleration of
gravity on the satellite was then divided by the acceleration of gravity on Earth to find
the percentage of gravity on the satellite.

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Data Analysis:

Figure 1. Distance of Earth and Gravity

Figure 1 shows the relationship between the distance from Earth and the
acceleration of gravity on the satellite. There seems to be a strong negative linear
relationship. As the satellites distance from Earth increases, the acceleration of gravity
decreases.
The correlation coefficient was calculated to be -0.999 using the equation from
Appendix D. This means that there is a very strong correlation between the distance
from Earth and the acceleration of gravity on the satellites. As the satellites distance

from Earth increases, the acceleration of gravity decreases. The

r 2 value represents

the percentage of variance that is accounted for in the linear relationship. Its value is
equal to 0.999 which was found using the equation from Appendix E. This means that
99.9% of the variance is accounted for in the linear relationship, and is nearly perfect.

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Figure 2. The Least Squares Regression Line

Figure 2. above shows the least squares regression line, or LSRL. The equation

of the line comes out to be

^y =9.69136+(0.000002 x ) . This means that as the

distance increases by 1 meter, the acceleration of gravity decreases by 2.46E-6 m/s.

The y-intercept of 24.42 represents the acceleration of gravity at the center of the Earth.
With a distance of 637000 meters, there is an acceleration of 9.69 m/s

. This

represents the acceleratoin of gravity at sea level. It is close to the real value of 9.8
m/s 2
Hypothesis:
H0: = 0
Ha:

<0

Assumptions:

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Linear: The overall pattern of the scatterplots seems linear. The r and

value are

-0.999, and 0.999 which were found using equations from Appendices D and E. This
means that there is a very strong linear relationship, and the line accounts for 99.9% of
the variance in the data.
Independent: The mass and distance of one satellite does no effect the mass or
distance of another.
Normal:

Figure 3. Boxplot of Residuals

Figure 3. above shows a boxplot of the residuals. The data looks normal but
may have a little bit of skewedness to the left, although it is minimal and the values are
only thousandths of a unit.
Equal SD:

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Figure 4. Residual Plot
Figure 4. above shows that the minimum and maximum of the residuals are
approximately the same value when the distance from 0 is found. The minimum has a
value of -0.015, while the maximum has a value of 0.016.
Alpha and Beta: Alpha are unbiased estimators of a and b.
Random: The data came from a random sampling of satellites.
Linear Regression Test:

Figure 4. Linear regression Test

Figure 4 above shows the result of the linear regression test. The test was
conducted with the distance as the explanatory variable and the acceleration of gravity
as the dependent variable. A t value of -111.063 was found, and gave a p-value of 2.4E14, which is extremely close to zero.
Conclusion:
Reject the null hypothesis. The linear regression test gave a p-value of almost 0,
which is smaller than the alpha level of 0.05. As the distance from the center of the

Cherry Schultz 10
Earth increases, that acceleration f gravity decreases. There is an almost 0% chance of
getting these results at random if the null hypothesis is true.

Confidence interval:

Figure 5. Linear Regression Confidence Interval

Figure 5 above shows the confidence interval for the linear regression. The
upper boundary is -2.4E-6, and the lower boundary is -0.25E-6. This means that if the
test were repeated many times, 95% of the value of slope would lie between -2.4E-6,
and -0.25E-6.
Data for Moon and Galaxy 15:
Table 2
Data for Moon and Galaxy 15
Satteli
te

Mass(kg
)

Perigee

Apegee

Avg Dist
(m)

Fg

Accel (g)

Percent
of g

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Moon

1.00E+
23

3626000 4054000 3903710

00
00
00

26E19

0.00

0.03

Galax
y 15

2033

3576400 3577900 4214250

0
0
0

456.13

0.22

2.29

Table 2. above shows all of the data for the Moon and Galaxy 15. The mass of
the satellites were found online, along with the distance from Earth. The radius of Earth
was then added to the distance to find the distance from the center of Earth. This
distance was then used along with Plancks constant to find the acceleration of gravity
on the satellite. The acceleration of gravity on the satellite was then divided by the
acceleration of gravity on Earth to find the percentage of gravity on the satellite.
Data Analysis:

Figure 6. Power Scatter plot

Figure 6 above shows the scatter plot after the Moon and Galaxy 15 were added.
The data no longer looks linear. The linear line on the plot only seems to go through
two of the points. The powers regression is now the best fit because it hits all of the
points. The equation for the powers regression is an inverse square regression.

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The correlation coefficient is r = 0.074. This means that the line is a decent fit

with a negative slope. The

r 2 value represents the percentage of variance that is

accounted for in the linear relationship. Its value is equal to 0.55. This means that 55%
of the variance is accounted for in the linear relationship.

Assumptions:
Linear: The overall pattern of the scatterplots is not linear. The linear line of best fit was
only intersected two of the twelve points,
Independent: The mass and distance of one satellite does no effect the mass or
distance of another.
Normal:

Figure 7. Boxplot of Residuals

Figure 7. above shows a boxplot of the residuals. There is one outlier to the left.
Without this data point, the data would be fairly normal.

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Equal SD:

Figure 8. Residual Plot

Figure 8. above shows the minimum and maximum of the residuals are not
approximately the same value when the distance from 0 is found. The minimum has a
value of -7, while the maximum has a value of 1.5.
Alpha and Beta: Alpha are unbiased estimators of a and b.
Random: The data came from a random sampling of satellites.
Linear Regression Test:

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Figure 9. Linear regression Test

Figure 9 above shows the result of the linear regression test. The test was
conducted with the distance as the explanatory variable and the acceleration of gravity
as the dependent variable. A t value of -3.5 was found, and gave a p-value of 0.002,
which is extremely close to zero.
Confidence interval:

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Figure 10. Linear Regression Confidence Interval
Figure 10 above shows the confidence interval for the linear regression. The
upper boundary is -8.1E-9, and the lower boundary is -3.6E-8. This means that if the
test were repeated many times, 95% of the value would lie between -8.1E-9, and
-3.6E-8.
3 Part-Conclusion:
Reject the null hypothesis. The linear regression test gave a p-value of 0.002,
which is smaller than the alpha level of 0.05. As the distance from the center of the
Earth increases, that acceleration f gravity decreases. There is a 0.2% chance of
getting these results at random if the null hypothesis is true.

Conclusion
There is gravity in space. Even though astronauts can float without restraint in
space, there is a small amount of gravity because the satellites orbit around the Earth.
This gravity is based on the ratio of mass between Earth and the desired satellite.
Because Earth is such a large body of mass, it causes each satellite to be attracted to
the planet and experience some gravity. This gravity is also based on the distance
between the satellite and Earth though. How much gravity is in space?
As it can be observed in Appendix A, the equation to find gravitational force is
based on the mass of the satellite and the distance between the satellite and the Earths
core. The relationship between gravity and distance from Earth is negative and linear.
As the distance from Earth gets bigger and bigger, the amount of gravity decreases.
This supports Newtons law of universal gravitation, which states gravity is inversely

Cherry Schultz 16
proportional to the square o the distance between two objects. The correlation
coefficient through testing is -0.999, which is extremely close to a perfect negative
correlation, displaying that the Earth has much lesser influence on the gravity of farther
satellites.
Observed in Appendix B is the formula used to compute the acceleration due to
gravity. This was calculated taking the force of gravity on the satellite and dividing it by
the mass of that desired satellite. The acceleration due to gravity is directly related to
the force of gravity, which is calculated using the equation from the appendix, while
being inversely related to the mass of the particular satellite. This is explained through
Newtons second law of motion, stating that acceleration depends on both the force and
the mass of the desired object. Newtons second law of motion is exemplified in this
experiment to demonstrate how much acceleration due to gravity a particular satellite
contains.
Appendix A
F g=G

mE mS
r2

This equation is used to calculate the force of gravity. It was used to calculate
each satellites gravitational force. G represents the universal gravitational constant, and
the variables me and ms are the masses of Earth and the satellite that was calculated. r
is the distance from the satellite to the center of the Earth.

Appendix B
A g=

Fg
mS

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This is the equation used to calculate the acceleration due to gravity on each
satellite. Fg is the force of gravity on the space station, and ms is the mass of the desired
satellite. The equation is based off Newtons Second Law of Motion, which stated that
force is equal to the product of mass and acceleration.

Appendix C
g

Ag
g
The equation above is used to calculate the ratio of the gravitational acceleration

on the desired satellite, Ag, to the gravitational acceleration on Earth, or g. This ratio was
found by dividing Ag by g.

Appendix D
n

x xx y i y
1
r=
( i
)(
)

n1 1
sx
sy
This is the regression equation used to calculate the correlation coefficient, or Rvalue. If the r-value is near one, that means that the data has a strong linear trend, or
positively correlated. An r-value of close to negative one would also mean that the data
has a strong linear trend, but it would be negatively correlated.

Appendix E
2

r =rr

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This equation is used to calculate the r-squared value. The r-squared value helps
determine the strength of a linear relationship in data. To have a strong linear
relationship, the r-squared value would be around 0.5 or greater.

Appendix F
t=

1
2
( y y )

n2
( x x )2
This is the equation used to calculate the t statistic for the data. This value can

be used to determine the p-value that tells the user how likely the situation would be to
happen based on chance in the null hypothesis was true. That will also tell whether to
reject or fail to reject the hypothesis.

Works Cited
Melina, By. "International Space Station: By the Numbers | Space.com."
Space.com.Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.space.com/8876-international-space-station-numbers.html>.
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration." . . . Aura . . . NASA, n.d. Web. 13 Mar.
2015. <http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/about.html>.
"Aqua Project Science." Aqua Project Science. NASA, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.
<http://aqua.nasa.gov/about/instruments.php>.
"International Space Station." NASA. NASA, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/onthestation/facts_and_figure
s.html#.VQMGjdLF-Sp>.
"Terra (satellite)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_(satellite)>.

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"Salyut 5." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_5>.
Garber, Steve. "Sputnik." Sputnik. NASA, n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2015.
<http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/>.
"Skylab." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab>.
"Hubble Space Telescope." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope>.
"Mir." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir>.