Go Learn In Space (Educational Fun With Orbiter - Pipex

Fixing Up a Bad Orbit
� If someone is available who can run Orbiter, they can show you
a brief (15-20 minute) demonstration of how it all works
� The demo is based on the steps shown in chapter 2 (“Smack!”)
of Go Play In Space (free tutorial e-book for Orbiter)
– Two Earth orbiting spacecraft have just docked nose to
nose, but the low point of their orbit is too low
– To fix up the orbit requires a few steps: “Kill” their axial
rotation, undock, point both craft in the orbital direction, wait
for apoapsis (high point of orbit), and fire main engines of
each spacecraft to raise the low point to a safe 200 km or
so above the surface (and make the orbit almost circular)
– Orbiter lets you switch between different spacecraft and
speed up or slow down time, so slow motion can be used to
give enough time to do these steps for both spacecraft
– The following few slides (figures from the book) help to
illustrate key points of the demo