For an entirely random reason, I am wondering about thrust vectoring on spacecraft. More precisely, how do I calculate the angular acceleration imparted on a ship by an off-axis thrust vector? (assuming the off-center burn is only displaced in one direction in a two-dimensional plane, to not complicate things)
I am reasonably sure my attempts to do that are wrong: I am essentially modelling the situation in two dimensions, by splitting the off-axis thrust vector into its component forces, taking the component that acts perpedincular to the direction of travel and applying it as I would a lever, with the arm being the engine's distance from the center of mass.
I'm not even sure this is high school level physics ; At least my old high school textbooks don't have a problem like this one. Maybe Polish science education just sucks, I don't know