Fundamentals of Celestial and Orbital Mechanics - 675.734

This course will focus on the study of orbital and celestial mechanics, using many of the methods that are covered in a traditional advanced mechanics course. This is foundational and necessary information for the study of advanced astrodynamics. We will look primarily at closed form and approximation methods (as opposed to numerical solutions) in a wide variety of problems in orbital and celestial mechanics. Students who take this class will be well-versed in fundamentals that can then be leveraged in more advanced future space applications such as spaceflight mechanics, navigation and control, geodesy, maneuver design, orbit determination rendezvous and proximity operations, and others. Topics will include Newtonian Mechanics, Newtonian Gravitation, Central Force Orbits (with a focus on Keplerian Orbits), Orbital & Interplanetary Maneuvers, Non-inertial Reference Frames, the Lagrangian Formalism, Rigid Body Rotation, the Three Body Problem, Approximation Methods for Orbits, Spherical Harmonic Representation of the Earth’s geoid, and Lunar Motion. Discussions will include the historical figures who contributed significantly to the topics discussed.