Acceleration Regimes

Most sections of Volume I contain design considerations that are applicable to space and planetary missions. While some standards may only be relevant to microgravity operations (i.e., orbital operations), another standard may be applied to launch and entry conditions where extreme forces of gravity are imposed.

The code shown in brackets { } at the beginning of each section indicates which environment, or acceleration regime, is applicable to the section. Definitions of the codes are provided below:

{O} = Orbital: The microgravity acceleration environments encountered in orbital and very low acceleration transorbital operations.

{L} = Launch/Entry: The multi-G launch, entry, and abort acceleration environments.

{P} = Planetary: The G-loads encountered on the moon and Mars. Long-term, low-level accelerations encountered in some transorbital flight operations may be applicable. An artificial gravity system may also fall into this acceleration regime.

{ALL} This regime includes all of the above along with one-G acceleration environment.

(blank) None of the above apply.