Satellite orbital elements
Intended as an introductory course for students with no background in astromechanics the class provides a working knowledge base for those interested in astronautics. The eight-week course consists of weekly asynchronous online lectures, followed by weekly synchronous discussion and example sessions to practice working with the material.
The online course* covers the following topics:
| Week 1: | Kepler, Newton, from the N-body problem to the restricted two-body problem |
| Week 2: | Energy and angular momentum; conic section orbits and their geometry |
| Week 3: | Types of orbit, Kepler’s second & third laws, time of flight calculation |
| Week 4: | Coordinate systems relevant to astromechanics and orbits, orbital elements and orbital geometry |
| Week 5: | Orbital manoeuvring, Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, and the concept of Delta-V |
| Week 6: | from a geometric picture of transfers to the dynamics and timing of spacecraft traversing transfer trajectories |
| Week 7: | spheres of influence and the patched-conics approximation for interplanetary trajectories |
| Week 8: | computations of complete interplanetary patched-conics transfers, synthesizing analyses of Keplerian orbits, manoeuvring, transfers, patched conics, and phasing. |
Two fifty-minute lecture videos will be posted at the beginning of each week for asynchronous viewing, along with a short assignment summarizing the material. At the end of each week, there is a synchronous online discussion and example problem session where the students meet online with Professor Fitzgerald to discuss the material, answer questions, and go over some practice problems relevant to the assignment.
The solutions to the weekly assignments will be graded and discussed at the weekly synchronous sessions. The students will also submit a “final project“ at the end of the course. This will take the form of a given set of problems outlining the orbital computations necessary for the preliminary design of a space mission.
The programme was developed in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Jutta Abulawi, who heads the ISAP project and is coordinating the class in Hamburg. ‘We are extremely excited about this new online course and very grateful to Professor Fitzgerald for making it possible. It widens our students’ expertise and is another important building block in the development of the strategic partnership between Virginia Tech and HAW Hamburg.’
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The course is financed with ISAP funding from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
ISAP: Internationale Studien- und Ausbildungspartnerschaften: www.daad.de/isap
*Link to course flyer / Link to Prof. Dr. Riley Fitzgerald profile
Prof. Dr. Jutta Abulawi
Faculty of Aviation & Automotive Systems
