Orbital mechanics

10: Orbital mechanics

Status: planned. This module is scoped but not yet written. The scope below is the commitment; it is here so you can see where the curriculum is going and tell us if the plan is wrong.

From 'where is it now' to 'where will it be, and how do I get there'.

Planned lessons

• The six orbital elements and what each one does
• Kepler's equation and solving it numerically
• Orbit propagation, and why it drifts
• Transfer orbits and the Hohmann transfer
• Why launch windows exist

Prerequisites

• Module 09

Intended approach

src/moonfield/orbits.py. Newton-Raphson on Kepler's equation is a good first taste of numerical methods.

Want this sooner?

Say so in Discussions, demand genuinely reorders the queue. Better still, write a lesson: see CONTRIBUTING.md. A single lesson following the lab pattern is a complete, useful contribution.

If you want to work through this material now without waiting, say so in Discussions and someone will point you at good sources. The reading list is not the bottleneck; the lab-shaped version is.