DOODLES AND DIGITS: How It's Math

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I'm Caroline, and this is How It's Math, where we discover the surprising ways math shows up in the real world and in amazing careers.

Today, we have a very special episode all about looking up, way up.

We're exploring how math helps us understand space, predict the weather, and launch rockets into the sky.

First, we'll take a closer look at satellites and discover how math helps them travel thousands of miles above Earth while sending important information back down to us.

Next, we'll explore meteorology and see how scientists use data, measurements, and patterns to predict the weather and help keep people safe.

Finally, we're heading to a rocket launch where experts use math to calculate time, distance, and speed to send rockets and satellites into space.

From satellites to storms to rocket launches, you're about to see that math isn't just something you do in school, it's something people use to understand and explore our world and beyond.

Let's count down and see how it's math.

Three, two, one, blast off.

♪ Doodly doodle, doodly doodle ♪ ♪ Doodly doodles and digits ♪ Area, symmetry, fractions too ♪ ♪ It's all here for you ♪ What is a satellite?

A satellite is an object that moves around a larger object.

There are many different satellites that move around Earth.

Many of those satellites are man-made machines that all have important jobs.

Some satellites help with GPS and directions, weather forecast, communication, and learning about Earth and space.

They can also allow us to see large areas of the Earth at one time.

But satellites can't just go anywhere.

They have to be placed at exact distances from Earth, and that's where math comes in.

I'm Sergeant Austin Pleich, and I'm a formal instructor here at the 533rd Training Squadron here at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

I teach space electromagnetic warfare 101 for new Space Force guardian recruits that come from basic training.

Every electronic that we use, uses and communicates to each other with waves, squiggly lines going through the air that help our cell phones, our TVs, our computers all talk to each other.

How do you use math?

One area that we do teach with students is sending signals up to a satellite and then back down.

You need to know the exact power requirements that it takes to send a signal from Earth all the way up to space, so a very long distance.

So we use math to calculate how much power we need exactly to get those signals to and from space.

Why is it important to be precise in your position?

So a big thing is if we're not super precise with our math, our signal might not go through all the way, so we might get -- If we're trying to send a message to another person, and if we don't do our math right or we're not completely precise with our math, that person might only get 50% or half of what we're trying to tell them.

When we send signals up to a satellite, we are telling it, giving it commands, telling it where to go up in space.

And if that information's wrong, you could potentially have two satellites crashing into each other just like a car -- like two cars can crash and be a very damaging situation down here on Earth.

My name is First Lieutenant Grace Vlach.

I'm a guardian in the United States Space Force and in my current role, I instruct at the 533rd Training Squadron, which means I instruct the newest guardians to the United States Space Force.

I specialize in teaching orbital mechanics, which is a little bit scary sounding, but it's basically just how things orbit the Earth, how satellites orbit the Earth.

How do you use math?

Figuring out where a satellite is and what path it's going to take starts before we even put that satellite into space.

Depending on what sort of mission we want to do, if we want it to be really close to the Earth and have faster communication, take maybe better pictures for weather purposes, do we want it to be a little bit further so it sees a larger swath of the Earth?

So all of that actually starts before we put the satellite into orbit, and that involves lots of math.

Some of it is hand calculating that math, but a lot of it is through simulations that very intelligent people have come up with using those basic math skills, in conjunction with computers.

What data or numbers do you use?

So the first measurement that we need to take into account is something called gravity.

Gravity is the force that attracts all objects in the universe.

It's the reason I'm able to sit here rather than just going and floating away.

And gravity is out there affecting our satellites.

It is pulling them towards the Earth.

The other measurement that we have to take is something called velocity.

So velocity is basically how fast you are going.

It is your speed.

Our satellites have to move extremely quickly.

Our satellites are moving on the orders of kilometers per second.

So if you ever ran a 5K, which is five kilometers, our satellites are moving that speed in one second.

We need our satellites to be moving so quickly because they have to be continually falling towards the Earth.

They have to be continually, as I like to say, beating that force of gravity.

So they're moving so fast that even though they're being pulled towards the Earth, they are curving faster than they can catch up to the Earth.

It's like they're skydiving, but they're never hitting the ground.

Different types of satellites sit at different distances from Earth.

Low orbit satellites sit at 160 to 2,000 kilometers, medium Earth orbit satellites sit at 2,000 to 35,500 kilometers, and high Earth orbit satellites sit above 35,786 kilometers.

If a satellite is at a distance of 28,200 kilometers from Earth, what type of satellite is it?

It would be classified as a medium Earth orbit satellite, which sits between 2,000 and 35,500 kilometers.

Did you get it correct?

How did you get to the position you're at today?

I've been interested in space for a very long time.

I knew when I was in high school that I thought space was really interesting.

I wasn't sure how I was going to make a career out of it.

Then I got interested in the military, and it was the perfect way for me to get involved with space.

I did go to college directly out of high school, and in college I did study aerospace engineering, which really set me up well for a career in the space field.

And then I continued, got my master's also in aerospace engineering, so you can see there's a common thread there.

But I have been prioritizing studying space for my entire adult life.

Do you have any advice for us?

Practice, practice, practice.

Have patience.

Take your time.

You have all the time in the world to get better at math.

Don't get frustrated if you don't understand it right away.

It's not meant to be easy like that.

Do a million problems if you have to until you feel confident in that subject.

Satellites help us every day, even when we don't see them, and math is what helps keep them working high above Earth.

The math skills you're learning right now could help you work with satellites someday too.

Thanks for learning how math helps us understand space.

I am Sergeant Austin Pleich.

I am a formal instructor at the 533rd Training Squadron, and this is How It's Math.

My name is First Lieutenant Grace Vlach.

I'm a United States Space Force guardian, and this is How It's Math.

I am First Lieutenant Matthew Kovall.

I am a launch weather officer with the United States Air Force at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Airman First Class Sean White, and I'm a range weather forecaster with the 30 OSS at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

I provide pre-launch and day of launch weather support for all the various launches and landings that we have here at Vandenberg.

So we have various customers that are trying to launch their rockets into space or they have some space planes they are trying to land on our airfield.

My job is to look at weather data and weather models and provide them with forecasts and provide them with a fairly high confidence that the weather is going to impact their launch or not impact their launch.

What does a typical day look like?

Day-to-day, I do something called met watching, which is watching the weather and the atmospheric conditions for the entire base, and this could include a variety of tasks to do.

And this supports a lot of different operations.

Our main focus here are the launches for different customers like SpaceX, NASA, Minuteman.

And then for day-to-day operations as well, this means we also have to forecast and survey the entire base, so north, south, and the airfield for any operations for lightning, for winds, for a variety of different operations.

How do you use math?

I use math a lot in my job.

So with weather forecasting, some of the key figures I'm looking at for launches is how thick a cloud is, what type it is, how close it is to the actual path of a launch, as well as to how cold the cloud is?

All these factors are key in figuring out whether clouds or the atmosphere is going to impact a launch.

For example, one of the main concerns we have for launches is lightning.

One of our rules is that we cannot launch a rocket if there's been any lightning strikes within 10 nautical miles of the path of the rocket.

I have to know exactly where the path of the rocket is, where it is during its launch, whether there's any lightning, and if there is lightning in the area, how close it is.

If it's outside of 10 nautical miles, you can launch, however, I have to figure out if it's outside 10 nautical miles, not just from where the rocket is currently, but where the rocket is going to be.

What tools do you use when using math?

So to measure those 10 nautical miles, we have a system we call Volts, which helps measure and locate lightning strikes in the area.

With that, we're able to also determine the path that the rocket is going to take.

And just using distance of saying where the lightning strike occurred and where the rocket is going to be, we can kind of create a cone and figure out where the rocket is safe to launch Because as a rocket gets higher up in the atmosphere, it's going to be more than 10 nautical miles away.

So at a certain point, no matter where the lightning strike is, if the rocket's 10 nautical miles up in the atmosphere, then it's no concern for the lightning.

And then we can compare that with other tools we have, our local weather radar.

Our weather radar can be able to give us a very good visual image of incoming clouds or storms, and with that, we can be able to determine how thick the cloud is, determine if it's growing or weakening.

We can determine how fast it's moving, so we can time that out almost to like an hour or two so we can help figure out if this cloud that's going to impact a launch, we can figure out if it's going to be arriving sooner than we expect, slower than we expect, or if it's going to arrive during a count, so we might have to push the time we actually have to launch.

So right here, this is showing the current satellite view from Vandenberg.

So generally our base is right here.

And I can be able to determine how close any clouds are.

I can also -- since this is over time, I can be able to pause it at a certain point and be able to, with just a few buttons, determine how fast an actual cloud is moving.

And I have the time, so with that, I can determine how fast a cloud is moving and then be able to determine where it's going and where it'll be in like an hour or so.

But also this is just useful to be able to see -- for example, here we have some cumulus/stratus clouds, mid-level stratus clouds currently moving over to our northwest, and you can also see some of our typical marine layer that we see along the central coast just kinda staying a little bit offshore.

Depending also, like, where a launch is actually going can depend on whether a -- they can actually launch.

If we were trying to launch much more westerly towards where we have these thicker clouds, that might give us some hesitation on actual launch.

Whereas if we were launching further south where we have clear skies, that gives us more confidence that we can launch.

We also use a thing called Zulu time instead of regular local time.

Zulu time is to be able to use internationally.

It's a pretty unique time zone that we can use across every agency and every person around the world can use.

It's a universal time that we can upkeep to transmit information better.

So converting Zulu time is very important.

So time is very important indeed because it's important to be able to time things right for different operations.

So, for example, today we have a launch going on, and it is very, very critical that we can time if there's going to be anything that can disrupt the launches or any other operations that we have through our base, which are nearly every day we have different operations, whether it ranges from crane operators, whether it ranges from pilots leaving the airfield, or launches.

So it's very critical to have everything be precise for them.

What is a meteorologist?

A meteorologist is a scientist who studies the Earth's atmosphere to understand and predict the weather.

What types of jobs do meteorologists do?

Meteorologists can be part of many different fields.

You might be most familiar with them predicting the weather on TV, but they also can get jobs in research, aviation, agriculture, forensics, and the government.

The meteorologists at Vandenberg Space Force Base are tracking a storm before a big rocket launch.

The rocket launch is planned to be at 10: 22 am.

There's a storm on the way.

The storm will take 30 minutes to get to the launch location.

It is now 9: 50 am.

Will the rocket have enough time to launch before the storm arrives?

[clock ticking] No.

The storm will arrive around the time the rocket is supposed to launch, so the launch will be delayed.

This can happen often due to the weather.

I solved this by adding 30 minutes to 9: 50 am to get the answer 10:20 am.

This time is two minutes before the rocket is supposed to launch.

For every launch, there's a whole team behind every single mission to make sure that everything goes right.

We are just focused on weather.

There are other people that are focused on the actual payload.

There's people who are focused on the actual path of it, making sure that's all clear, so there's no airplanes or anybody in the path.

It's a whole team effort, and we do that for every single launch throughout the entire year.

Halfway through the year, we've already had over 40 launches, and in the future here at Vandenberg, we're expecting to have a pace of where we're going to be launching almost two rockets in a week.

I'm Airman Sean White.

I'm Lieutenant Matthew Kovall.

And I am a range weather forecaster.

I'm a launch weather officer of the United States Air Force.

And this is How It's Math.

So why do we launch rockets?

We launch rockets for many different reasons.

Some rockets are used to launch satellites into orbit.

Others put scientific instruments in the atmosphere, and other rockets even take people up into space.

Today, we get to go to Vandenberg Space Force Base where they launch up to 100 rockets every year.

There is a ton of work and many people who work to make sure the rocket gets off the ground safely and completes its mission.

I'm First Lieutenant Anna Ford, and I am a 6-2, which means I'm a developmental engineer, with our space launch squadron here at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

I get to work with the engineers at the launch service provider companies like United Launch Alliance and SpaceX, and we get to work on their rockets together.

How do you use math?

So we will use math to identify risks that might be popping up right before a rocket launches.

So one example I like to use is with the propulsion elements of our rocket.

So we've got super cold fuels and oxidizers that allow the rocket to go all the way up to space, and we have to monitor the temperature of these fluids.

We have to monitor the flow rate of these fluids.

What tools do you use when using math?

We do pull up a lot of schematics.

So these schematics allow us to see the different parts of the rocket in a level that is much more precise than maybe you could see with your eyes.

So I'm able to see in a cartoon drawing essentially what is going on when the fuel will flow from the ground to the rocket.

So we'll pull up schematics.

We'll pull up plots, so a graph, and we like to see where pressure is spiking, where temperature is dropping.

Sometimes you'll set bounds on your graph, so you'll have an upper limit and a lower limit, and we want to make sure that all of our measurements are within those bounds that we set beforehand.

Why is it important to be precise in your position?

So on the day of launch when the rocket is about to be launched, we will definitely look at all the decimals that are within our requirements.

So sometimes, a pressure measurement or a temperature measurement could be 29.5.

So we don't want it to be 29 psi or 29 degrees Fahrenheit because it must be 29.5 degrees.

So accuracy is really important there, and we use decimals a lot whenever we're monitoring those measurements.

Fun fact.

Did you know that they sometimes use a different time than you and I might be familiar with when launching a rocket?

They use something called Zulu time.

Zulu time is a 24-hour clock that never changes no matter where you are in the world.

While our local time changes for time zones and daylight savings, Zulu time stays the same.

People like rocket launch teams, pilots, astronauts and weather scientists use Zulu time, so everyone agrees on the exact moment something happens.

How cool is that?

Another person who helps launch the rocket is Captain Phillips, who is in the command center making sure that everything goes smoothly and counts down to launch time.

My name is Captain Tyler Phillips.

I am a range operations commander for the Second Range Operations Squadron here at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

How do you use math?

We do use angles.

We use both angles and also degrees.

And so, for instance, if a rocket is actually launching at zero degrees, that is going to be going straight into the ground.

So -- and if a rocket is launching at 90 degrees, that means it's going straight up, which means that it's going to get a lot of height, but not really that far of a distance horizontally.

And so we try to meet in the middle at 45 degrees launch or roughly around there to get the most optimal rocket launch so we get both height and distance into our actual missions.

What tools do you use when using math?

So our main tool for rocket launches that we use on console is clocks.

So we have multitude of different clocks.

We have about at least five or six different clocks, and they each tell a different story.

One of them is telling them how close we are to actually launching the rocket.

The other is telling you the actual date and time that it is currently now.

And the other one is probably telling you how far the rocket has gone after it has launched and how many seconds has elapsed since the rocket timing because that's important for post-mission analysis to determine how fast it reaches orbit.

What data or numbers do you use?

So in my line of work, double-checking is basically built into every single aspect.

So I not only work in launch, but I have a partner that has the same job as me that works next to me.

Now, even though I may be the primary individual that's doing all the calculations, he's there double-checking my work and make sure everything is correct.

That's because if one little mistake happens, it not only affects myself, but it affects the entire range team and an entire mission.

So even though my one second mistake happened at that time, it could be having a multi-day mistake on the bigger picture.

Even after a rocket launches, the work isn't over.

They study how the launch went and other impacts such as sonic booms.

Let's talk to a scientist about the important work of studying sonic booms at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

I am Major Adekunbi Adewumi.

I am the chief of project integrations.

So one of my biggest projects right now is a sonic boom study.

So Vandenberg Space Force Base, as we launch rockets, since they go supersonic or faster than the speed of sound, they create sonic booms.

What are sonic booms?

Sonic booms are loud sounds similar to the sound of thunder caused by rockets moving faster than sound.

When a rocket or aircraft goes that fast, it pushes the air so quickly that it makes a big boom we can hear on the ground.

It's important to study sonic booms because we want to make sure that we understand the impact that we have on the environment around us.

So the environment, including the natural resources, the cultural resources, and the people who live in our communities.

We measure sonic booms with what we call acoustic monitoring stations.

We collect data from this wide 500 square foot area to ensure that we captured any of the factors that could influence how the sonic boom travels and how the sonic boom is experienced in these communities.

How do you use math?

We use a lot of different types of graphs to -- as we collect the data for sonic booms.

The one we use most often are line graphs to plot how the sonic boom travels across a given area.

What is a line graph?

A line graph is a graph used to show information and how it changes often over time.

It uses a series of data points connected by straight lines.

Why do we need to research sonic booms?

What I hope that we can accomplish with the research we're doing into sonic booms here at Vandenberg Space Force Base is that we can have a much better understanding of how sonic booms happen, and hopefully maybe even one day decrease the amount of sonic booms that happen with our rocket launches.

There's so much math and so much science that goes into this study and this research that it's -- a lot of it's new, a lot of it are things that haven't been done before.

So we need a lot of smart people, a lot of brains that think differently to research this and help us come up with various ways that we can impact and help, not just Vandenberg Space Force Base, but everyone across the world.

Time is extremely important for the entire launch team before, during, and after a rocket launch.

There is a rocket launch in 3 hours and 20 minutes.

Right now it is 4: 25 am.

What time will the rocket launch take place?

[clock ticking] The rocket launch will take place at 7:45 am.

I solved this by looking at a clock.

I first added three hours to 4, which got me to 7:25 am.

Then I added 20 minutes, which landed on 7:45 am.

Did you get it correct?

Did you use a different method?

How did you get to the position you're at today?

I always had a love of math and science.

And so growing up, I always took the, you know, science classes in high school.

And then in college, I went to college for electrical engineering, knowing that I was going to join the Air Force at the time.

And then through the Air Force, I had multiple jobs in engineering that led me to transferring into the Space Force, where I am today.

Do you have any advice for us?

Math is so much of the language in the world.

It explains why so many things work the way that they do.

And if you can use math as a language and find the meaning in it, I think that will take you really far and also help you explain some pretty complex things to a lot of people.

From checking rocket parts to monitoring launches to studying what happens after lift-off, math plays a role every step of the way.

Rocket launches are a team effort, and math helps all of those teams work together.

My name is Anna Ford.

I am an engineer.

My name is Captain Tyler Phillips.

I'm a range operations commander.

I am Major Adekunbi Adewumi, I do sonic boom research.

And this is How It's Math.

Wow.

Look at all the ways math helps us understand space, predict the weather, and launch incredible technology into the sky.

Whether it was measuring distance, working with data, or solving complex problems, math helped make sense of the world above us and beyond.

The next time you look up at the sky, remember, math is helping us understand what's happening above us every single day.

Thanks for exploring with us on How It's Math.

I'm Caroline, and I can't wait to discover more real-world math with you next time.

Male Narrator: Funding for this program is provided in part by... Female Narrator: We believe in getting outside, playing in the yard, growing things, and connecting with the earth.

We believe good can grow anywhere.

That's why we're committed to GroMoreGood, everywhere.

Male Narrator: And also by...