The Physics of Spaceflight

3 ch (3C) · Undergraduate

Have you ever wondered how to get to Mars? If so, this course is for you. The course will begin with the famous problem of proving Kepler's three laws of planetary motion from Newton's 2nd law of motion and his Universal Law of Gravitation. From this launching point definitions will be developed for the significant geometrical and physical characteristics of elliptical, parabolic and hyperbolic orbits. Next, and what will form the bulk of the course, the motion of spacecraft, and how they can move from one orbit to another, will be studied. The basic form of orbital transfer, called the Hohmann transfer, will be applied first to spacecraft moving from orbit to orbit around the earth and, later, to flights to the Moon, Mars and beyond.