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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Orbit transfer trajectory options to the moon
I am working on a project for a lunar flyby using a CubeSat. I was wondering what kind of trajectory transfer options are present and which one would be best for a CubeSat? I'm aiming for a transfer ...
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What space simulators are the most accurate at simulating real world physics?
We've all at least heard of KSP, a popular space flight simulator. its not the best but can teach someone the basics at rocket science, delta V, burntime, basic orbital maneuvers, retrograde, prograde,...
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Aldrin cycler mission to Mars in MATLAB [closed]
I am planning to do a mission project on Aldrin Cycler (Earth to Mars) in MATLAB. Can you please suggest me where to start.
I tried reading few research paper related to this topic, any other advice?
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North-South Satellite Manuever
I am doing North-South manuever for GEO satellite. My purpose is to reduce the inclination. My initial inclination is 0.07 deg, and my target inclination is 0.0002 deg. I have tried the maneuver in ...
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Why do we prefer using the rotating reference frame rather than the Inertial frame in the three-body problem?
As the title says, I wanted to ask why do we prefer using the rotating reference frame rather than the Inertial frame in the three-body problem to place the primaries?
And how is it better for ...
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Would astronauts have been able to save the CST-100 mission?
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner failed an unmanned test because the timer on the spacecraft was off by 11 hours. This caused the spacecraft computer to think it was ahead in mission timing by 11 hours, ...
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How to calculate delta v for orbit change around body; not necessarily Earth?
Let me express my joy at having found this great place of Stack Exchange.
My question concerns the calculation of delta v requirements when already in orbit around a body and lowering or raising ...
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How does the dynamics of the Jupiter and Saturn system make them be well suited for low-energy transfer?
Many papers mention that the compact and complex dynamics of the Jupiter and Saturn systems makes them ideal low energy transfer. My question is how?
How does the dynamics of the Jupiter and Saturn ...
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Replacement strategies for defective Starlink satellites
I wonder what is the approach to replace let's say: 5 defective Starlink satellites, each one in a different orbit? I guess that it can't be done with just one launch as the krypton ion thrusters ...
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How do you calculate shift in argument of periapsis for a not instantaneous burn assuming you're starting in circular orbit?
Most times we assume that burns are instantaneous, in this case if you burn (without a radial component) at the periapsis or apoapsis there is no shift in argument.
Let's say the engine is weak and ...
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Trajectory Optimization To The Moon (Case Study: Chandrayaan-2)
People always ask this million dollar question of " What is the best path/trajectory to take to reach a certain orbit or point in space".
Chandrayaan-2 had a pretty neat transfer to the moon, it took ...
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What would be the best course of orbital maneuvers for soft landing an asteroid near the lunar south pole? [duplicate]
Wouldn't it be nice for a colony near the south pole of our Moon to have a nickel-iron asteroid on the surface nearby !
Thousands near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) have been discovered with a diameter up to ...
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Most fuel-efficient deorbit from geostationary
Say a spacecraft in geostationary orbit needs to be deorbited (not very common, but bear with me).
How does one decide when and how long should the retrograde burns be, in order to have started with ...
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Would it be possible to Boost ISS to L1 or Lunar Orbit?
NASA and Russia plan to retire the ISS before 2030, and to launch a new lunar outpost to lunar orbit. This output could then be a gateway to future mission to Mars or the outer solar system.
My ...
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Why does this formula for the required delta v of a semi major axis alteration not work or am I I misinterpreting it?
My spaceflight mechanics lecture script has this formula, without derivation or reference.
But I think it does not work. For example let us assume we find ourself in a circular 250km orbit around ...
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Circular to elliptical orbit delta V requirements
this might be a dumb question, but i've been recently trying to calculate the delta V to deorbit a satellite, and I've run into a problem. Assuming a 400km circular starting orbit(and disregarding ...
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Bringing an asteroid into reasonably low Earth orbit--can it be done?
Assume plenty of delta-v is available but it's very slow.
At first glance it looks easy enough, get capture and spiral in. However, we have that big bully in the sky, aka Luna. Is it possible to ...
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Will ESA's Solar Orbiter crash into Venus? If so, why?
The BBC News article European SolO probe ready to take on audacious mission links to the ESA video shown below and contains this 5 minute audio interview with NASA deputy project scientist on the ...
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Inclination maneuvers for GEO satellites
I was wondering about the orbital location to perform inclination nulling maneuvers for GEO satellites.
I know from basic astrodynamics that the best place to perform inclination correction is at ...
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Halley comet flyby
Halley's comet's next perihelion will happen around mid 2061.
Considering, that its orbit is retrograde (viewable here), is it possible to build a flyby trajectory by means of gravitational ...
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Did Juno just do a plane change? If so, by how much?
There are several reports in the news that the Juno spacecraft executed a very long propulsive maneuver so that it wouldn't pass through Jupiter's shadow. Apparently it would be in dark so long that ...
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What kind of mission objective would make a parabolic escape trajectory desirable?
As far as I can tell, a trajectory with zero excess velocity would place it (essentially) in nearly the same orbit around the sun as earth (assuming it even departs far away enough for the sun’s ...
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How does the orbit of the Voyager and New Horizons probes manage to get into interstellar space?
I understand that every probe launched has been launched into an orbit. The further you want to go into the solar system, the faster it needs to be moving. And everything orbits the sun until it finds ...
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Could a trajectory from Earth really wrap around Jupiter and then head straight into the Sun? [duplicate]
Comments below How much less delta-v would it take to reach the Sun using Venus and Earth flyby's compared to direct? tend to suggest that one way to send a spacecraft into the Sun (either straight in ...
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What is the highest velocity a spacecraft has left Earth?
The comment below @TomSpilker's answer
I'd love to see anything in LEO that can impart 20.89km/s of delta V to anything.
got me wondering what the highest velocity a spacecraft has left the Earth,...
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What is the delta-v required to get a mass in Earth orbit into the sun using a SINGLE transfer?
I've seen this several related questions to this, but they tend to focus on complex maneuvers to minimize the delta-V. If I wanted to mass-drive, railgun or tether-spin a mass so that it would ...
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Do you need to burn fuel between gravity assists?
If you are planning a mission to an outer planet with multiple gravity assists included, do you need to do some burns for corrections, between the slingshots, or the ideal trajectory is already ...
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Do “partial” Hohmann transfers exist?
I'm doing some research for fiction writing, and I would like to have my plot points comply with known science whenever possible.
Regarding orbital transfers, I know that the fastest way from orbit A ...
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How does one calculate the argument of periapsis of an orbit after an arbitrary maneuver?
Given a satellite in an equatorial orbit, a specific prograde or retrograde burn is executed at an arbitrary point within the orbit, and I need to calculate the resulting orbital ellipse.
The ...
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Does Chandrayaan 2 use gravity assist?
All of the descriptions I've seen online describing Chandrayaan-2's path to the Moon either explicitly or implicitly describe it involving a "gravity assist":
The spacecraft will make use of the ...
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Why does TDRS 1's inclination evolve so much differently than that of all the others starting in 1995?
The plot below is from the question Why do the geosynchronous TDRS satellites have this distribution of inclinations?, and the explanation says
Inclination and mean motion (rev/day) for TDRS ...
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Did Cassini's Titan flyby's have scheduled TCM's afterwards? If so, were they usually used?
In this answer I wrote:
But while NEO's are fairly passive and only weakly propulsive (outgassing, photon pressure and thermal radiation effects) deep space spacecraft are active and substantially ...
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Is SpaceX propulsively deorbiting a Starlink satellite already?
The plot below shows that most of the SpaceX Starlink satellites have moved from circa 450 km to circa 550 kilometers already, using their argon-based ion engines.
A few, along with four unidentified ...
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How will the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) satellites achieve their final orbital spacing?
The informative page shows that the RCM satellites are intended to orbit as follows:
Sun-synchronous circular orbit (dawn-dusk mission), nominal altitude =
592.7 km, inclination = 97.74º, period ...
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Transfer between circular orbits in up to 5 maneuvers
There are 2 circular orbits with different inclination and RAAN. I have to transfer from a specific point (true anomaly given) of one orbit to a given point of another in 1 month. The period of the ...
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On the dynamics of two connected objects located at different circular orbits
I'm just thinking about the qualitative and quantitative implications of a hypothetical orbital problem, but what I ended up does not make sense as it should.
In particular, assume that two objects ...
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Can someone help Scott Manley explain this Snoopy-capturing maneuver?
In his recent video Apollo 10's Lunar Module Snoopy Is Lost In Space - Could We Bring it Home? Scott Manley uses some fancy supplemental techniques in KSP to simulate and explain a possible mission to ...
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How often are satellites in GEO moved to follow customer demand?
The BBC News article Inmarsat lays big satellite order with Airbus says:
The firm is buying three new spacecraft to augment its Global Xpress system, which provides connectivity to on-the-move and ...
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How much Delta-V is needed for Orbital Maintenance?
My question is aimed at understanding the how much Delta-V is needed for orbital maintenance in different orbits. Obviously, there still is some residual air resistance that decreases as the orbital ...
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How do I calculate the change in the argument of periapsis after a plane change maneuver?
Let's say I have a spacecraft in an initial geocentric orbit with the following parameters: a = 7,960,000 m, e = 0.010, $\Omega$ = 180$^{\circ}$, i = 98$^{\circ}$, $\omega$ = 90$^{\circ}$, $\theta_0$ =...
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Using the distance components to calculate minimal dV randezvouz trajectory
The are objects on 100 circular orbits, 1 object on each orbit. One orbit is said to be initial (I) and others are final (F) .
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Lambert problem solver needed for custom gravity in Python
I need to solve the Lambert problem, however, I have a custom gravity model.
My ODE of motion is:
...
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Determine the “nearest” orbit
There are 100 circular orbits with different radii, inclinations and RAAN. The nearest orbit by definition is the one, which requires less $\Delta V$ for a transfer.
Assumed that 2 impulsive ...
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How will Starlink satellites deploy from the fairing and reach their orbits?
Elon Musk posted this picture of the first 60 Starlink satellites packed densely into the fairing of the Falcon scheduled to launch in a few hours.
There doesn't appear to be a launcher or ejector to ...
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Can the ISS boost maneuver engine be heard by the astronauts on board?
In the extremely cool demonstration video Demonstration of Acceleration Inside the International Space Station During a Reboost ISS Expedition 22 Commander Jeffry Williams says near the end at ...
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How to find Horizons ephemerides or Spice kernels for the cis-lunar halo orbits of the Themis B & C) spacecraft?
The Themis spacecraft B and C have been renamed ARTEMIS P1 and P2 and moved around in cis-lunar space from Earth orbit to Lunar orbit.
This transfer involved libration point orbits, as discussed in ...
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How to find the transfer orbit from a initial circular orbit to a final elliptical orbit
Is a hohmann transfer or bi-elliptical transfer more efficient for this case? How can I find the transfer orbit that conserves the most deltaV?
I will be going from a circular Earth centered orbit ...
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What if GOCE rolled 90°?
Reading this question: Is GOCE a satellite or aircraft?
I wondered what would happen if GOCE rolled 90° in either direction, so that it's solar panels become parallel to Earth's horizon, and then ...
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Minor query on mid course correction and cryogenic oxygen tank incident in Apollo 13 flight path
In the flight path of Apollo 13 (data taken from Wikipedia), the first mid course correction was done at 30:40:50 and cryogenic oxygen tank incident occurred at 55:54:53. I have three small questions ...
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Could a satellite in GEO-orbit make an evasive maneuver to avoid an anti-satellite impactor?
Communication satellites orbit at an altitude a couple of hundred times above the satellite that the Indian government recently shot down. Also GPS-satellites are about one hundred times further up ...
