Course Description
Lecture 1 |
Series Overview. A Short History of the Space Program and the Lecturer. Previews, Historical Perspective, and Movies. Course questions. |
Lecture 2 |
Interplanetary Mission Design; Lambert's Problem and the Zero-Patched Conic Method: Rutherford's Atom. B-plane targeting and transfer geometry. Entry, Descent, and Landing. Launch-Arrival Opportunities (Pork-chop) plots. |
Lecture 3 |
Practical Aspects of the Restricted Three-Body Problem: Jacobi's Integral and the Zero-Patched Conic. DE = n' Dhz. |
Lecture 4 |
The Rocket Equation: A Cosmic Inelegance. Aerobraking & Aerocapture. Introduction to Optimal Transfer/Staging. Lagrange multipliers. Low-thrust optimization. |
Lecture 5 |
Gravity Assisted Mission Design: Orbit Pumping and Cranking, Resonance Hopping; the Jupiter Flower Orbit, the Double Lunar Swingby. |
Lecture 6 |
The BackFlip: 180o Moon-to-Moon Transfer and its Application to Double Lunar Swingby Trajectories and Lunar Cycler Orbits. Movies. GEO via Lunar Gravity Assist. |
Lecture 7 |
The Art & Science of Lunar Gravity Assist. Celestial acrobatics in cis-lunar space. |
Lecture 8 |
Uncommon Sense in Orbit Mechanics. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. The Triple Lunar Swingby. |
Lecture 9 |
Orbit Propagation for Close Orbiters in an Oblate Field: The Theories of Brouwer, Kozai, Izsak, and Aksnes. Handy Dandy FORTRAN Subroutines. |
Lecture 10 |
Averaging: Analytical and Numerical Methods; Third Body Perturbations, Drag. Gaussian Quadrature Subroutines. |
Lecture 11 |
Double Averaging: The Analytic Nature of Long-Periodic 3rd-Body Effects. The Work of Lidov and Williams and Lorell. The Orbit of IMP-H (Explorer 35). |
Lecture 12 |
Perturbation Coupling: Balancing of Forces Frozen Orbits (J2/J3), Orbits Frozen by 3rd Body Effects. Long-term Stability. GEO orbits as examples of strong coupling between oblateness and luni-solar perturbations. The two most important forces in the Solar System. |
Lecture 12 |
The Solar Sail: Principles of Light Sailing; the Halley Rendezvous Mission; Mercury Sample Return; the Interplanetary Shuttle. Very Fast Solar Sails. |
Lecture 13 |
Future History: Laser Sails, SEP/NEP, Anti-matter Rockets: Interstellar Travel; Civilization in Space. Answers to course questions. Discussion. |
Lecture 14 |
Student presentation of semester projects. |