The problem of rendezvous, the meeting of spacecraft in orbit, is an important aspect of mission planning. We imagine a situation where a chaser craft, initially traveling on the same circular orbit as its target and separated from it by a known distance, must select an initial thrust vector that will allow it to meet the target (interception) followed by a second thrust vector that will allow it to match velocities with the target (rendezvous). The analysis presented here provides solutions to this problem in simple algebraic forms while offering many rich challenges that support intuition-building exercises for students across a range of skill levels. An html-javascript orbit calculator is made available with this manuscript as a supporting visual aid and can be used to test the analysis and explore the consequences of different orbital intercept solutions.
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June 2021
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June 01 2021
Interception and rendezvous: An intuition-building approach to orbital dynamics
Eric M. Edlund
Eric M. Edlund
a)
Department of Physics, SUNY Cortland
, Cortland, New York 13045
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Electronic mail: [email protected]; Permanent address: PO Box 2000, Cortland 13045, New York.
Am. J. Phys. 89, 559–566 (2021)
Article history
Received:
June 17 2020
Accepted:
January 20 2021
Citation
Eric M. Edlund; Interception and rendezvous: An intuition-building approach to orbital dynamics. Am. J. Phys. 1 June 2021; 89 (6): 559–566. https://doi.org/10.1119/10.0003489
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