by MarkBour » Thu Apr 10, 2014 3:29 pm
Okay, speaking of math, and the Dawn spacecraft, I have a very basic orbital mechanics question. Actually, I'm not wanting the equations, just the qualitative description. Let's say I'm the Dawn spacecraft and I'm orbiting the Sun, a little ways in front of or behind the Earth, but in an identical orbit. Now, let's say I turn on my thruster to increase my forward motion. What happens? I believe I go into an elliptical orbit, with Earth's orbit as the perihelion and some larger distance as the aphelion. And oddly enough, although I accelerated "forward" and increased my forward rotational velocity (e.g. in km/s) around the Sun, instead of catching up to Earth, since I am now in a larger orbit, I will have watched the Earth pull ahead of me, in its steady journey around the Sun. So my rotational velocity in terms of degrees/s around the Sun actually decreased. Is that correct? So, in the diagram in the link to the Dawn spacecraft's mission, the transfer orbits actually show Dawn kind of backpedalling away from the planet it is at, as it transfers outward to a more Sun-remote planet's orbit?
It's counter-intuitive to me. Does anyone have a simulator for it?
Okay, speaking of math, and the Dawn spacecraft, I have a very basic orbital mechanics question. Actually, I'm not wanting the equations, just the qualitative description. Let's say I'm the Dawn spacecraft and I'm orbiting the Sun, a little ways in front of or behind the Earth, but in an identical orbit. Now, let's say I turn on my thruster to increase my forward motion. What happens? I believe I go into an elliptical orbit, with Earth's orbit as the perihelion and some larger distance as the aphelion. And oddly enough, although I accelerated "forward" and increased my forward rotational velocity (e.g. in km/s) around the Sun, instead of catching up to Earth, since I am now in a larger orbit, I will have watched the Earth pull ahead of me, in its steady journey around the Sun. So my rotational velocity in terms of degrees/s around the Sun actually decreased. Is that correct? So, in the diagram in the link to the Dawn spacecraft's mission, the transfer orbits actually show Dawn kind of backpedalling away from the planet it is at, as it transfers outward to a more Sun-remote planet's orbit?
It's counter-intuitive to me. Does anyone have a simulator for it?