Questions tagged [orbital-maneuver]
In spaceflight, an orbital maneuver is the use of propulsion systems to change the orbit of a spacecraft.
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What was the first spacecraft intentionally moved from GEO to the graveyard orbit to die? (just a bit above geosynchronous)
Why “super” for supersynchronous orbits? Why not “trans”? and discussions and answers there got me wondering:
Question: What was the first spacecraft intentionally moved from GEO or geosynchronous to ...
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James Webb orbit insertion
Webb will issue a final course correction burn to insert it into the orbit around L2. It arrives from earth so the approach velocity should be higher than the desired orbit velocity and the vector ...
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What are the benefits of supersynchronous transfer orbits?
Some satellites are injected into higher apogee than standard GTO apogee of 35 786 km. Next the satellite then has to increase its perigee ( usually 250 km ) to GEO altitude. Then the apogee has to be ...
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Are VASIMR + Arcjet engines feasible for orbital transfers on Mars?
The VASIMR engine is an electric propulsion system that has been lauded for its ability to cut down on interplanetary transfers. While it requires a high power source (in the range of 200kW), it is a ...
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What is the delta v required for insertion to sun-earth L2?
What is the delta v required to place a satellite in L2 from earth transfer orbit ( Like the James Webb Telescope )?
Does orbits closer to L2 different delta v from orbits far from L2?
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What is the largest single burn plane change maneuver executed in LEO?
Below 2000 km in low Earth orbit (or close to it), what is the largest propulsive plane change from a single burn?
Expecting an answer in degrees, a named mission and vehicle executing the burn itself....
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What is the equation that relates delta v of a rocket to time taken to complete an orbit?
I wanted to see how the delta-v produced by a rocket affects the time it takes to complete a certain orbit. So what is the equation that relates these two quantities?
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How much delta-v could be saved with a Hohmann-like transfer orbit to the aphelion of Mercury 's orbit instead of its perihelion?
I wrote "Hohmann-like" of course because Mercury's orbit is rather eccentric and has an inclination of 7 ⁰.
From this factsheet I've learned that perihelion is at 46 million km and aphelion ...
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How to calculate an initial impulse for escape from planet's sphere of influence and lay on a specific orbit around the Sun?
I have a spacecraft parked on orbit around the planet. I want to make interplanetary transfer to another planet. I can find the orbit around the Sun that I can use to move from the end of departure ...
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Do operational Starlink satellites run their ion engines at night on batteries? And if so, do they have hi/low settings?
Discussion below What is the maximum thrust of the Starlink satellites? raise the question of the Starlink communications satellites' power budget and use of their ion thruster in daylight when the ...
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What types of propulsion are used to adjust an orbit?
What types of propulsion are used to adjust the orbit of an object such as a satellite, space station, supply vehicle?
I'm curious if they all use the same method to adjust their trajectory, or if ...
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During orbital rendezvous, at what distance and approach velocity does the transition from orbital mechanics to “boating around” occur?
During the intercept (terminal) phase of orbital rendezvous, the intercepting spacecraft must use Proportional Navigation or Orbital Mechanics to develop an intercept course: all that counterintuative ...
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Pure orbit inclination changing, why delta v differs between vector and numerical approach?
as said in the title I have different results between numerical en vector approach during inclination changing maneuver.
The initial orbit :
Perigee radius : 6700 km
Eccentricity : 0.7
Inclination : ...
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Does other orbital parameters change on plane alignment impulsive maneuver?
I work on small application to apply impulsive maneuver on an orbit.
I want to align two orbits in the same plane.
After the execution of the function, original orbit has the same inclination and ...
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Is an orbital insertion burn part of any launch from earth
As I understand it once a spacecraft reaches low earth orbit it may have to do another burn to reach a different orbit. Would that change in orbit be considered an orbital insertion burn? Do any ...
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How to correct my real orbit and turn it into predicted ideal orbit?
I want to launch my ship to the purple ellipse orbit. But because of non-ideal world I have non-ideal ship orientation and non-ideal thrust impulse. So, my initial speed is a bit bigger and it's ...
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How to keep the phase angle with an Hohmann transfer?
I am studying the drag make up maneuver. In this maneuver, I need to go from point A to point B keeping the same phase angle as shown schematically in this picture
When I've approached this problem, ...
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Can ISS trash be used as reaction mass for orbital maintenance
There have been a number of videos posted about trash being hand-pitched out the back of the ISS. This seems like a waste of potential reaction mass, especially since it cost $20,000/kg to get it up ...
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How to correct orbit in case of perturbations? [duplicate]
I predicted the future position of orbital body and sent my spacecraft to that position. But the trajectory of body and spacecraft are changing because of perturbations. So, I need to correct this ...
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How to correctly change velocity in space?
The solver of the Lambert's problem gives me a hyperbolic velocity to move to some position on orbit. But the spacecraft is moving on orbit and changing the velocity takes some time. So, when I ...
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Calculating the projectile of rocket using RCS to tilt the flight path
If I have main solid rocket with 800 N Thrust, 9 kg in total and has RCS thrusters 0.5 m from the center mass. Mid flight the RCS with 1 N force is activated for 2 sec. How does it affect the flight ...
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How do RAAN steering increase the launch window?
In the recent ULA video by Tory Bruno Tory Talk // Atlas V Lucy: RAAN Steering (linked below) he gave some short hints about RAAN steering.
What is RAAN (Right Ascension of Ascending Node) steering?
...
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What's wrong with my bielliptic transfer calculation?
I'm trying to calculate the delta-v needed to get from a 200 km circular orbit to a geostationary orbit. GSO is at an altitude of 42164140.1029448 m and at a speed of 3074.6611762 m/s. Because $\frac{...
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Is there a known solution for optimal impulsive transfer between two arbitrary elliptical orbits?
If not, what optimization methods or tools do people use? (Code libraries?)
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How to find eccentric anomaly by mean anomaly?
Wikipedia gives me the equation
M = E - e*sinE
I have M and need to find E.
How to do it?
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How can we avoid collisions when moving from one orbit to another?
Imagine that my ship is parked in LEO and needs to transfer to a higher orbit. It makes a Hohmann transfer and flies to the needed orbit by an elliptical trajectory. But this trajectory is crossing a ...
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How to fly from Earth to Mars if the differences between phase angles is too big for Hohmann transfer but we have fuel for other transfers?
Hohmann transfer is possible when Earth and Mars positions are appropriate for this https://ai-solutions.com/_freeflyeruniversityguide/interplanetary_hohmann_transfe.htm
This happens one time in two ...
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Find the Orbital Inclination given all other Elements and a Position on the Ellipse
I'm in a situation where I need to determine an orbit's inclination. At my disposal I have all of the orbit's other Keplerian elements, and I have the vector of a single point on the ellipse. Is ...
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When burns are made during inefficient parts of the orbit, where does the lost energy go?
Any Kerbal Space Program player will know that burns prograde and retrograde to the velocity vector are most efficient closest to the body being orbited, while burns normal and anti-normal are most ...
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Right Ascension of the Ascending Node (RAAN) Drift and Correction
This one can be a very short and easy question, but I wanna know the proper answer of them..
Few days ago I got a questions like:
"What kind of perturbation(s) can cause drift on RAAN value of a ...
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Does going to Mars take the same energy as making a rendezvous with something going to Mars?
I think I found a mathematical error in the 2015 movie The Martian1. Warning, there will be spoilers.
The final plan they settle on to rescue Mark Watney is to have the Tiayang Shen rendezvous with ...
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Did the ISS just turn upside-down? Nauka docking attitude maneuvers; did the cupola near pointing zenith and therefore show only black sky w/ stars?
This answer to Is the ISS going to yaw and assume the XPOP attitude for Nauka docking? contains lots of information on the attitude trajectory in yaw-pitch-roll space, but from those I can't envision ...
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References for constant low-thrust spiral up-coast-spiral down phasing maneuvers for circular and non-circular orbits?
I am trying to find papers that describe constant low-thrust spiral up-coast-spiral down phasing maneuvers for circular and non-circular orbits. The thrust is assumed to be fixed at $T_{const}$ when ...
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Rotation matrix / coordinate transformation of maneuver parameters from Prograde, Normal, Radial to Cartesian XYZ?
Say I have a state vector and Keplerian elements of an orbiting spacecraft:
Position = [x, y, z]
Velocity = [vx, vy, vz]
Elements = [a, e, i, $\omega$, $\Omega$, $\nu$]
And I have the maneuver I ...
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Is it possible for the exhaust plume of a rocket engine burning retrograde to accelerate an object into an even higher orbit?
A couple weeks back, a debris object was catalogued in a 210x540km orbit following the deorbit burn of the Falcon 9 second stage that launched CRS-22:
Hmm... possible that CRS-22's stage 2 made ...
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How many existing satellites have a continuously varying orbit because of human design decisions?
In the space community, there is an assumption that changes to an Earth satellite's orbit are infrequent (other than those due to atmospheric drag). Are there any known satellites designed to ...
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Could this three-thruster spherical spacecraft de-tumble itself with zero final velocity?
@Joshua's answer to What is the minimum number of RCS thrusters capable of stabilizing a satellite against an arbitrary rotation? begins:
I know this question is old, but I randomly discovered a ...
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Do geodesics close on an ellipsoid?
I want to calculate the shortest distance between two points (Point A and Point B) on the ellipsoid surface. For this I need to use geodetic passing through these two points. Well, if I continue this ...
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What orbits are Starlink satellites now deployed into? How low to do they go on their first perigee?
In my answer to Delta-V of Starlink Satellites I ballpark spherical-cow envelope-back estimated 190 m/s with 2 kg of krypton based on raising only from a 445 km circular orbit to a 550 km circular ...
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Time to reach interstellar space
From my understanding, both voyager 1 and voyager 2 used a gravity assisted slingshot method to leave the solar system.
Question(s):
Since the planetary alignment used won't happen again for a while, ...
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What is the acceleration in an orbit decaying due to air resistance relative to one not decaying?
This answer to Is there an upper limit for the internal size of space stations? has this paragraph:
Finally, if you are stuck ["stranded" in the middle of a room in a space station filled ...
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How many burns does it take to reboost the ISS?
When the International Space Station is given a reboost, how many burns are performed? Is it a Hohmann transfer orbit, with one perigee burn and one apogee burn? Or is it one burn at apogee just to ...
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Difference between distance from Mars (Rmag) and B-plane R coordinate
I am running some GMAT simulations on Mars 2020 trajectory to Mars, following the ephemerides published by JPL.
I create a target sequence and target the planet using the b-plane coordinates B and T. ...
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How will Juice substantially increase its inclination around Jupiter in January 2031?
The ESA video Juice’s Jovian odyssey linked below is quite interesting to watch. Around January of 2031 it substantially increases its inclination around Jupiter. Big inclination changes can be ...
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How much delta-v does it take to go from one arbitrary orbit to another?
This is, in theory, very basic rocket science. I can't seem to find a solution on here though, so I'm asking in the hopes you'll enlighten me and my amateurish ways.
I've got a set of Keplerian ...
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Orbit design guidelines for rendezvous with ISS?
Are there guidelines for orbit design if you're launching a payload for delivery to the ISS? Altitude, maybe phase angle constraints? Orbital approach maneuvers, maybe?
I've figured out how to control ...
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Why (the heck) did Tianwan-1 insert into a low inclination orbit then execute a plane change from 11.8 to 86.9 degrees?
eoPortal's Tianwen-1 (China's first Mars Exploration Mission) shows the following graphic, caption and link.
It's often discussed that orbital plane changes are like certain table wines in that they ...
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Oberth Effect in Solar Sails: Where does the extra energy comes from?
Suppose, the reflectors of Solar Sails are opened for same amount of time at both periapsis and apoapsis. How does Oberth effect work in this case? Will Delta-V be same and hence change in Kinetic ...
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This ISS trash deployment looks more like 2 feet than 2 inches per second, was it too fast or are these articles incorrect?
Digital Trends' Watch a NASA astronaut jettison part of the ISS into space which was linked in says:
Writing in Air & Space last year about the process of jettisoning objects, veteran NASA ...
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Determining the launch period for Hohmann transfer
How do you determine the day of a specific launch? I know there are launch windows but they only refer to the time at which a spacecraft must be launched.
For a LEO it is apparently 365 days, but what ...
