How long does a drop pod drop take?

[Token]

From being launched from a Battlebarge, or whatever it is called, perhaps not that good at the BFG stuff, how long does it take until the drop pod hits ground?

[Brother Tyler]

R x T = D

 

We don't know any of those variables.

[Token]

Ah, to bad.

[Dumah]

Probably something similar to the time it takes a space capsule to fall to earth. Maybe if you can find that out it'll be helpful?

[Token]

Thanks for the tip, found some info, but seems like the capsule dont fall straight down, google info stuff said that it skim the Earths atmosphere, i Think the marine pods would "fall" straight down, or?

[Dumah]

Thanks for the tip, found some info, but seems like the capsule dont fall straight down, google info stuff said that it skim the Earths atmosphere, i Think the marine pods would "fall" straight down, or?

 

Fair point. The velocity is probably much faster in the case of the Drop Pod, given that it's fired from what's essentially a giant cannon. I'm afraid without more specifics on mass and distance etc. we can only speculate.

[Doghouse]

I think to be honest as far as 40k goes it's whatever is logical to the reader/viewer for dramatic effect rather than actual hard science.

 

In my mind a few minutes from space to ground atleast given the way that they are portrayed in game trailers.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Probably something similar to the time it takes a space capsule to fall to earth. Maybe if you can find that out it'll be helpful?

Likely shorter, as a Space Marine's augmented physique can tolerate acceleration and deceleration (and the G-forces they generate) that would shatter unaugmented humans' bones and reduce to paste the organs those bones protected.

[Brother Tyler]

According to Imperial Armour Volume Two - Second Edition: War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes, the maximum speed of a drop pod is 12,000 kph descent. Presumably, the technology of the drop pod and the transhuman physiology of the Adeptus Astartes means that they are able to withstand the acceleration to that maximum speed, the turbulence of the trip, and the rapid deceleration.

 

We still lack sufficient evidence to give a definitive answer, though, as it will rely upon things like gravitational pull (not just from the planet, but from other objects whose mass might exert an effect on the drop pod), velocity of the ship from which they are being launched, velocity at time of launch, resistance (especially once they hit the point where the planet's atmosphere has an effect), distance from the surface (which could very well vary with the dimensions of the planet and its atmosphere as well as the situation in orbit), etc. You would need a rocket scientist to explain the full scope of variables involved (and my wife will readily tell you that I am most definitely not a rocket scientist ).

 

If we use Terra as an example, and if we assume a 12,000 kph rate of travel from start to finish and a starting point 16 km from the surface¹ and we ignore all of the other variables, we get a time of 4.8 seconds (assuming I did my math correctly).

 

 

 

 

¹ Approximately 75% of Terra's atmosphere is within 11 km of the surface, so I'm putting an Adeptus Astartes vessel a little under 1.5 km outside of a theoretical limit, though there is no hard limit between a planet's atmosphere and the vacuum of space.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

According to Wikipedia's article on Project Mercury, the Mercury spacecraft would undergo atmospheric reentry 2 minutes and 34 seconds after firing retrorockets; deploy the main parachute 3 minutes and 27 second after that; and land 5 minutes and 7 seconds after that. Total time since the retrorockets fire, is 10 minutes and 8 seconds.

 

I think a Space Marine drop pod can omit the parachutes, relying on more powerful rockets to decelerate the pod- plus the Marines' augmented physiques to survive the crushing pressure the resulting deceleration would subject their bodies to- reducing the pod's travel time to five minutes from launch to landing.

[Brother Tyler]

There's no need to guess as we have the official lore (from the book I identified previously):

 

Drop Pods are one-way, sealed, armoured landing craft. Once released they plummet through a planet's atmosphere, streaking across the sky before firing retro rockets to slow their descent before touching down. Having made what amounts more to a controlled crash than a landing, the Space Marines enclosed within deploy via explosive bolt-released assault ramps, attacking the enemy without delay or else pressing on to designated objectives.

The most interesting word is "released," which implies that the drop pods reach maximum velocity under their own power rather than being fired from the vessel so that their primary thrusters simply augment initial velocity imparted by the vessel's firing process. So the assumption in my previous post is shown to be incorrect - the drop pods will start with near-zero velocity when they are released, gain velocity as they thrust, complete the majority of the trip under acceleration/maximum velocity, then rapidly decelerate with the retro rockets.

 

There's a bit more to the lore, including the logistics of recovering and repairing them for repeated use, but none of that is really germane to the discussion.

[Karhedron]

In the absence of definitive figures, we can use our own vessels that re-enter the atmosphere. Mercury is quite as just over 10 minutes and Apollo just over 13. The Space Shuttle took a leisurely 32 minutes but that was due to coming in at a glide.

 

Space Marines probably take less time as they can withstand greater acceleration/deceleration as noted above. From a tactical point of view, a rapid drop would give the enemy less time to respond so makes sense.

 

The only question is what altitude the Battle Barge or Strike Cruiser deploys its pods at. This will probably vary depending on whatever engagements are going on in orbit around the planet.

 

In short, lots of variables but I think we can safely assume it is of the order of several minutes from deployment to impact.