Chapter 2, Problem 51P

During the complicated sequence that landed the rover Curiosity on Mars in 2012, the spacecraft reached an altitude of 142 m above the Martian surface, moving vertically downward at 32.0 m/s. It then entered a so-called constant deceleration (CD) phase, during which its velocity decreased steadily to 0.75 m/s while it dropped to an altitude of 23 m. What was the magnitude of the spacecraft’s acceleration during this CD phase?