Earth to Orbit

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 Velocity Budget for Earth - Orbit

❑ Assumptions for this analysis:

➢ Vehicle is at an arbitrary location on its trajectory through the atmosphere.
➢ Earth is stationary (not rotating).
➢ Lift forces are negligible for wingless vehicle with α =0.
➢ Constant thrust and no wind.

❑ Acceleration in direction of flight:

𝑑𝑢 𝐹𝑐𝑜𝑠𝛼 ′ 𝐷
= − − 𝑔 sin 𝛾
𝑑𝑡 𝑚 𝑚
𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑜𝑢𝑡
𝐹 𝐹 𝐷
𝑣𝐿𝐸𝑂 = න 𝑑𝑡 − න 1 − cos 𝛼 ′ 𝑑𝑡 − න 𝑑𝑡 − න 𝑔 sin 𝛾 𝑑𝑡
𝑚 𝑚 𝑚
𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛

= Δvprop - Δvsteering - Δvdrag - Δvgravity

❑ Δv requirements to reach Orbit:

Δvprop = vLEO + Δvsteering + Δvdrag + Δvgravity

 Surface Velocity

❑ Launch into Easterly Direction

uorbit

usurface
KSC

Kennedy θ
Space
Center
Equator
North Pole

Orbit

2𝜋𝑟𝐸 cos 𝜃
➢ Surface Velocity: 𝑢𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒 =
1 𝑑𝑎𝑦

➢ Overall Δv for LEO: ΔvLEO = uorbit - usurface

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 Velocity Budget for Earth - Orbit

❑ Velocity at Orbit Injection: vLEO ❑ Steering Losses: Δvsteering

➢ Circular Orbit
➢ Elliptical Orbit
❑ Earth Rotation: Δvrotation

❑ Gravity Losses: Δvgravity

❑ Drag Losses: Δvdrag

Δv budgets for LEO
hp: altitude of perigee, ha: altitude of apogee
 Space Shuttle Ascent History

❑ Speed vs time (s) ❑ Altitude vs time (s)

MECO (Main Engine Cut-Off)
Jettison the external tank OMS (Orbital
Maneuvering
System) Burn

Solid Rocket Gravity Controlled

Booster Trajectory
Separation

❑ Shuttle Velocity Increments

 Trajectory Optimization

❑ To limit drag losses, fly straight up (Trajectory A)

➢ Minimizes flying time through atmosphere.
➢ Maximizes g-t loss, since gravity directly opposite
thrust.
C
❑ To limit g-t loss, fly parallel to Earth (Trajectory B) orbit
➢ High drag losses due to long flying time in atmosphere.

❑ Optimal trajectory: Trajectory C A

➢ Early portion of the flight is nearly vertical to reduce
drag effects.
➢ End of trajectory is more horizontal to reduce gravity EARTH
loss.
➢ GNC engineers use detailed trajectory codes to
determine (maximized payload / minimized loss) path to
desired orbit for given propulsion system characteristics.

❑ Accurate trajectory calculation include: B

➢ Three translational & rotational axis
➢ Wind & thrust misalignment, finite angle of attack, etc.
 Other Factors Affecting Δv

❑ Constraints include:
➢ Lift-off transients: vibration and acoustic noise
➢ Transonic flight
➢ Max q (maximum dynamic pressure) (typically around 1.4 < M < 1.9)
➢ Aero-heating
➢ Angle of attack limits
➢ Payload-related limits on acceleration
➢ Jettison transients

❑ Variable thrust and specific impulse

❑ Variable lift and drag:
➢ Variable atmospheric conditions (atmospheric density, wind, etc.)
➢ Variable speed (variable CD and CL – both functions of M)

❑ Thrust vectoring
❑ Earth’s rotation and oblateness
❑ Third body effects
 Other Factors Affecting Δv (contd.)
❑ Propulsion System Effects on Vehicle Performance:
➢ Specific impulse – linear
✓ More energetic propellants, higher chamber pressure, larger ε
➢ Mass ratio – logarithmic
✓ Reduce inert mass to increase  (mass fraction) 𝑚𝑝
 = 𝑚 +𝑚
➢ g-t loss 𝑝 𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑡
✓ Reduce burning time during vertical ascent by higher thrust
✓ Use wings to add lift
➢ Aerodynamic drag
✓ Tailor forebody shape
✓ Reduce cross-sectional area
✓ Reduce base drag
➢ Initial velocity
✓ Launch near equator
✓ Air-launch
➢ Optimize trajectory to increase propulsive efficiency
✓ c≈u
ORBIT REQUIREMENTS
 KEPLERIAN ORBITS

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

• German mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, and natural philosopher,
• Born in Weil der Stadt and moved to Leonberg as a boy where he attended
the local Latin School,
• Studied theology and philosophy at the University of Tübingen,
• Professor of mathematics and astronomy (1594-1600) at the Protestant
School (later to become University of Graz) in Graz, Austria,
• Assistant to Tycho Brahe (1600-1601) in Prag,
• After Tycho's unexpected death in 1601, Kepler was appointed as
Brahe’s successor as imperial mathematician (1601-1612) to the
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) Emperor’s court of Rudolf II,
• His mother, Katharina Kepler, was accused and imprisoned for witchcraft in
Leonberg,
• Between 1612 and 1630 he taught mathematics in Linz
• Grave Inscription: “Die Himmel hab ich gemessen, jetzt meß ich die
Schatten der Erde. Himmelwärts strebte der Geist, des Körpers Schatten ruht
hier.” (The heavens I have measured, now I measure the shadows of the
Earth. Towards the heavens strived the spirit, the body’s shadow rests here.

Keplerian Laws:
First Law: The orbit of each planet is an ellipse, with the Sun at one focus.

Second Law: The line joining the planet to the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times.

Third Law: The square of the period of a planet is proportional to the cube of its mean distance from the Sun.
KEPLERIAN ORBITS (Contd.)
 Tycho and Kepler

❑ Tycho Brahe was the last great observer who did not use a telescope, in the decades
just preceding Galileo.
❑ He made extremely precise measurements of the positions of the planets over a long
time, using large mechanical devices for precise measurement of angles. He wanted
to prove his own model for the solar system, which was a strange mixture of
Ptolemy’s and the Coperican system. But he lacked the mathematics to make the
necessary reduction of the data, so he hired an assistant, Johannes Kepler.
❑ Kepler disagreed with Tycho’s model, but did not complete his work until after
Tycho died.
❑ Kepler was a great mathematician, and after studying Tycho’s measurements over
many years, he came up with his three laws of planetary motion (qualitative version):

First Law: Planets travel in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus
Planets move more slowly in their orbits when far from the Sun than when close to
Second Law:
the Sun
Third Law: Planets with larger orbits move more slowly than planets with smaller orbits.
 How Kepler Got His First Law

❑ He showed how to measure the relative distance to the

inner planets (Mercury and Venus) by measuring their
angle of greatest elongation, a:

Greatest Elongations for Mercury in 2001-2002 (from JPL Calendar)

Sep 18 - Mercury Greatest Eastern Elongation (26 Degrees)
Oct 29 - Mercury At Its Greatest Western Elongation (18 Degrees)
Jan 12 - Mercury At Its Greatest Eastern Elongation (19 Degrees)
Feb 21 - Mercury at Greatest Western Elongation (27 Degrees)
May 04 - Mercury Greatest Eastern Elongation (20 Degrees)
Jun 21 - Mercury at Greatest Western Elongation (22 Degrees)

Animation showing the six

consecutive greatest elongations of
Mercury listed above. The position
of Earth is advanced the appropriate
number of degrees around its orbit
for each date, then the line to
Mercury is drawn East or West of the
Sun as needed. Mercury is on this
ray, at the point that the ray passes
closest to the Sun.
 First Law for Outer Planets

Determining distance of outer planet from Sun:

Take two measurements of the elongation (angle from the Sun)
of Mars, one sidereal period (687 days) apart. Earth is at
location E' at the time of the first observation, goes once around
its orbit and arrives back at location E (almost completing two
orbits) after Mars has gone around once.

The figure below shows the situation at a larger scale, with the
angles labeled. The two elongation angles are e and e', and we
also know the angle n, which is just the number of degrees less
than two full orbits that the Earth makes in 687 days. You
should be able to show that n = 42.89 degrees.

Since triangle DSEE' is isoceles, we can determine a,

(you should be able to show that it is 68.56 degrees)
and hence the length EE' (use the Law of Sines to show
that it is 0.73 AU). Subtract a from e and e', which
allows us to solve for triangle DEPE'. Finally, using the
Law of Cosines for triangle DSPE', we can determine
the distance r.

Kepler repeated this procedure for many pairs of measurements of the planet Mars, taken by
the excellent observer, Tycho Brahe, and was able to show that the distance r varies with time
in the way expected if the path were an ellipse! You can see that this is not easy, and requires
extremely good observations of angles.
 KEPLERIAN ORBITS

❑ Equations of Motion for a Satellite

▪ Assumptions:
➢ Two body system
➢ Earth is spherical, symmetrical, homogeneous
➢ Earth’s mass >> satellite mass
➢ Gravity only force in system. G is a universal constant, meaning that it is thought
to be the same everywhere in the universe. It has
▪ Newton’s Second Law: 𝐹Ԧ = 𝑚𝑎Ԧ = 𝑚𝑟Ԧሷ been measured experimentally to
be G=6.673× 10−11 N⋅ m2 /kg2
𝐺𝑀𝑚 𝜇𝑚
▪ Law of Universal Gravitation: F = − = −
𝑟2 𝑟2
𝜇
▪ Two-Body Equation of Motion: 𝑟Ԧሷ + 𝑟Ԧ = 0
𝑟2
𝑎 1 − 𝑒2
▪ Polar Equation of Conic Sections: 𝑟 =
1 + 𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑣 e =0

❑ Energy Equation:
e 0
𝑣2 𝜇 𝜇
ε = ε𝑘𝑖𝑛 + ε𝑝𝑜𝑡 = − =−
2 𝑟 2𝑎
e =1
e 1
KEPLERIAN ORBITS

In SI units, the value of universal

gravitational constant is
approximately 6.674×10−11 m3⋅kg−1⋅s−2.
 Ellipses

or e=√(1-b²/a²)
Ellipses (Contd.)
 Orbits as Ellipses
❑ The above properties belong to all ellipses, but when the ellipse represents a
planetary orbit, some of these variables have special significance. Here are some
of them:
❑ As Kepler found, planets have an orbit that is an ellipse with the Sun at one focus.
In the drawing below, the Sun would be at focus F. There would be nothing at all
at focus F '.
❑ When the planet is at position A on the ellipse (closest to the Sun), it is at
perihelion. 𝑟 = 𝑎(1 − 𝑒)
❑ When the planet is at position A' in its orbit (farthest from the Sun), it is at
aphelion. 𝑟 = 𝑎(1 + 𝑒)
 Conic Sections

Although Kepler showed that planets orbit in ellipses, more generally we know that
objects orbit in one of three “conic sections,” ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola, where:
𝑎 1 − 𝑒2
Ellipse: 𝑟= ;0 < 𝑒 < 1
1 + 𝑒 cos 𝜃

2𝑎 A circle is a special
Parabola: 𝑟=− ;𝑒 = 1 case of an ellipse, with
1 + cos 𝜃
e=0
𝑎 𝑒2 − 1
Hyperbola: 𝑟= ;𝑒 > 1
1 + 𝑒 cos 𝜃
 Kepler’s Laws (Quantitative)

Kepler's Three Laws (quantitative version)

Planets travel in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus, and obey the
First Law: equation 𝑟 = 𝑐/(1 + 𝑒 cos 𝜃), where 𝑐 = 𝑎(1 − 𝑒 2 ) for 0 < e < 1. (Comets
and other bodies can have hyperbolic orbits, where 𝑐 = 𝑎(𝑒 2 − 1), for e > 1.)

The radius vector of a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times (planet
Second Law:
travels fastest when near perihelion).

The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of its
semi-major axis:
𝑃2 = 𝑘𝑎3, where k is a constant
Third Law:
Note: Kepler showed that this relationship also held for the newly discovered
moons of Jupiter by Galileo, but with a different value for the constant k! One
consequence of this law is that inner planets travel faster than outer planets.
 CIRCULAR & ELLIPTICAL ORBITS

❑ Orbital Velocity of Circular Orbit Fc

▪ Forces acting on Satellite m uorb

2
𝐹Ԧ𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 = 𝐹Ԧ𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑣 𝑚𝑢𝑜𝑟𝑏 𝐺𝑀𝑚 𝜇𝑚 Fg
= 𝑚𝑔 = 2 = 2
𝑟 𝑟 𝑟
M
𝜇 h
▪ Orbit Velocity 𝑢𝑐𝑖𝑟𝑐𝑢 = 𝜇 = 𝐺𝑀 R0
𝑟
r

❑ Orbital Velocity of Elliptic Orbit

▪ Velocity from Energy Equation
2 1
𝑢𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑝 = 𝜇 −
𝑟 𝑎
r
▪ Apogee & Perigee Velocities
2𝜇 𝑟𝑝 𝜇 1−𝑒
𝑢𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑔𝑒𝑒 = ∙ = ∙
𝑟𝑎 + 𝑟𝑝 𝑟𝑎 𝑎 1+𝑒

2𝜇 𝑟𝑎 𝜇 1+𝑒
𝑢𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑒𝑒 = ∙ = ∙
𝑟𝑎 + 𝑟𝑝 𝑟𝑝 𝑎 1−𝑒
 ESCAPE VELOCITY

❑ Kinetic energy equals work required to overcome gravity.

1
Ekin = Wgravity 𝐸𝑘𝑖𝑛 = 𝑚𝑣𝑧2
2
❑ Newton’s Law of Gravity: 𝐸𝑝𝑜𝑡 = 𝑚𝑔𝐸 ∙ 𝑧
𝐺 ∙ 𝑀𝐸 𝑚 𝜇𝐸 𝑚 𝑟𝐸 +𝑧
▪ Earth’s Surface: 𝐹𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑣 = 𝑚𝑔𝐸 = = 2 𝑊𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦 = න 𝐹𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑣 ∙ 𝑑𝑟
𝑟𝐸2 𝑟𝐸 𝑟𝐸
𝑟𝐸2 𝑟𝐸 +𝑧
𝑟𝐸2
▪ Any distance r > rE: 𝐹𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑣 = 𝑚𝑔𝐸 2 =න 𝑚𝑔𝐸 2 ∙ 𝑑𝑟
𝑟 𝑟𝐸 𝑟

1 𝑧 2𝑔𝐸 𝑟𝐸 𝑧
❑ Velocity Requirement: 𝑚𝑣𝑧2 = 𝑚𝑔𝐸 𝑟𝐸 𝑣𝑧 =
2 𝑟𝐸 + 𝑧 𝑟𝐸 + 𝑧

2𝜇𝐸
❑ Escape Velocity: z→  𝑣𝑒𝑠𝑐 = 2𝑔𝐸 𝑟𝐸 =
𝑟𝐸

❑ Escape Velocity for selected bodies:

▪ Earth: 11.2 km/s
▪ Sun: 616 km/s
▪ Moon: 2.4 km/s
 Example

An artificial satellite is placed in an

elliptical orbit about the earth. Its points of
the closet approach is 4,520 NM from the
center of the earth, and its point of greatest 13,500 NM
Earth
4,520 NM

distance is 13,500 NM from the center of

the earth. The speed of the satellite at the
perigee is 8450 m/s. Find the speed at the
apogee.

Note: 1 NM (Nautical Mile) = 1.852 km