Real-time ground track speed, velocity scrubber, and Mach number telemetry

Traditional flight simulators restrict velocity changes to discrete steps or clock multipliers. In Artemis Velocity Vis, the simulator decouples velocity from the animation frame loop by treating canonical progress $p \in [0, 1]$ as the primary spatial coordinate.

When scrubbing speed between $500\text{ mph}$ and $25,000\text{ mph}$, ground-track rates, Mach numbers, and remaining time estimations update with zero layout thrashing.

1. Aerospace Kinematics Equations

• Speed of Sound: $c_0 = 767.26\text{ mph}$ ($343.0\text{ m/s}$)
• Mach Number: $M = v_{\text{mph}} / 767.26$
• Ground-Track Speed: $v_{\text{mps}} = v_{\text{mph}} / 3600$
• Frame-Rate-Independent Integration: Given frame delta $\Delta t$ and multiplier $m$, spatial step $\Delta p$ is:

$\Delta p = \frac{\Delta t \cdot m \cdot v_{\text{mps}}}{D_{\text{geodesic}}}$

2. Catmull-Rom Skip Entry Altitude Modeling

For high-energy lunar returns (Artemis II), the spacecraft executes an aerocapture skip entry dipping into the upper atmosphere to bleed kinetic energy ($210,000\text{ ft}$) before lofting back upward ($290,000\text{ ft}$) and initiating final parachute deployment.