Orbital Mechanics I Newton's laws only. Nothing about energy or
momentum. Centripetal force and gravitational force. |Fc = Fg
||v = √ Kepler's third law. Derive Kepler's third law of
planetary motion (the harmonic law) from first principles. |v =
√ || = constant The "constant" depends on the object at the
focus. Although formulated from the data for objects orbiting
the sun, Newton showed that Kepler's third law can be applied to
any family of objects orbiting a common body. - LEO: low earth
orbit, typical altitude < 2000 km - space shuttle - space
station - Hubble Space Telescope - remote sensing: EROS, Landsat
- communications: email, text messaging, paging - MEO: medium
earth orbit, typical altitude 10,000 to 20,000 km -
Semisynchronous 12 hour period - GPS: Global Positioning System
- GEO: geosynchronous earth orbit, seven earth radii, one-ninth
of the distance to the moon, altitude = 36,000 km - Arthur C.
Clarke: In 1945, while still in his late 20s, he was the first
to propose the concept of using a net