The science behind splashdown − an aerospace engineer explains how NASA and SpaceX get spacecraft safely back on Earth

By Marcos Fernandez Tous, Assistant Professor of Space Studies, University of North Dakota

For about 15 minutes on July 21, 1961, American astronaut Gus Grissom felt at the top of the world – and indeed he was.

Grissom crewed the Liberty Bell 7 mission, a ballistic test flight that launched him through the atmosphere from a rocket. During the test, he sat inside a small capsule and reached a peak of over 100 miles up before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.

A Navy ship, the USS Randolph,…

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