Orbital Mechanics
Gravity continuously bends inertial motion, creating closed or escaping trajectories depending on energy and velocity.
Space dynamics
Orbital motion, transfer paths, and spacecraft attitude.
Animated concept pages for learning how gravity, velocity, impulse, and attitude control shape spacecraft motion after launch.
Transfer Orbits
Impulse burns reshape an orbit so a spacecraft can raise apogee, circularize, or meet another body.
Attitude Control
Reaction wheels, thrusters, and control laws rotate the vehicle so antennas, sensors, engines, and payloads point correctly.
What Space Dynamics Covers
Space dynamics studies motion after the vehicle is above most of the atmosphere. The dominant forces are gravity, thrust impulses, solar pressure, and tiny disturbances. Engineers use these concepts to estimate where a spacecraft will be, how much velocity change is needed, and how to point the vehicle during each mission event.
- Orbit shape is controlled by position, velocity, and central-body gravity.
- Transfers use burns to change energy and geometry.
- Attitude control changes pointing without necessarily changing the orbit.
Core Idea
Orbit is not floating still. It is continuous falling around a central body with enough sideways velocity to miss the surface.
StateBound orbit
DriverGravity
ControlImpulse