Solid Rocket Booster Recovery (2D)

Booster Recovery

PhaseReady

Deploy Setup

Drogue deploy altitude 4800 m

Main chute deploy altitude 1800 m

Simulation speed 1.0×

Live Readouts

Altitude

45,000 m

Descent rate

0 m/s

Dynamic pressure

0 Pa

Splashdown v

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How it works

Each Shuttle solid rocket booster (SRB) separated at about 45 km altitude and fell back under gravity and atmospheric drag alone. The net vertical acceleration integrated every frame is:

a = -g + (1/2 · ρ(h) · v² · Cd · A) / m
ρ(h) = ρ0 · e^(-h / H),  H ≈ 8500 m (atmospheric scale height)

Three drag configurations apply in sequence, each changing the effective Cd·A (drag coefficient × reference area):

Tumbling freefall — nose-cap still attached, small cross-section, Cd·A ≈ 11 m². Speed builds fast in the thin upper air.
Drogue chute — a 16.7 m conical ribbon chute deploys, pulls the booster tail-first, and slows it to roughly terminal descent, Cd·A ≈ 100 m².
Main chutes — three 41 m ringsail canopies pull free of the frustum, driving Cd·A up to ≈ 2,600 m² for a gentle splashdown.

Terminal velocity at any instant is v_t = √(2mg / (ρ·Cd·A)) — this is why dropping the deploy altitudes lower lets the booster build more speed before each chute bites, and why the real recovery sequence targets a splashdown speed near 23 m/s (75 ft/s) to keep the steel casings reusable. The two live plots below the drop view trace descent rate against altitude and against time — each chute deployment shows up as a sharp step-down as Cd·A jumps and the booster relaxes toward a new, much lower terminal velocity. Recovery ships then winch the floating boosters aboard for reprocessing.

Booster casing Drogue / main chutes Ocean surface