Transfer Orbits in Polar Coordinates
- Author:
- alholmeswabasha
- Topic:
- Coordinates
Imagine the Earth moving around the unit circle. We shoot a satellite into space, planning to have it reach a planet in another orbit in a specified time
( time = 5). The motion of the point M shows how to achieve this.
You can do this same work on a graphics calculator, plotting in polar coordinates.
Let r1=1, r2=2/(1+.5*cos(theta-1) (in radians), and
r3=r1+(r2-r1)*theta/5.