304 Its ONLY Rocket Science southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere is called theinclination, and this defines

the orientation of the orbit withrespect to the equator. Therefore, an orbit that is directly abovethe equator has an inclination of 0 and one that goes directly overthe north and south poles has an inclination of 90. In Figure 1.2, theorbit shown in red has an inclination of 28, which is the inclina-tion of most of the USAs scientific satellites. The yellow orbitshows the path of the International Space Station, which has aninclination of about 52. Longitude of the Ascending Node ( W ) The ascending node is where the orbit of a satellite crosses theEarths equator when the satellite is travelling from south to north,as shown in Figure A.1. The longitude of the ascending node isdefined with reference to the terms celestial sphere, the ecliptic andthe First Point of Aries, which therefore need to be defined first:The celestial sphere is the imaginary sphere encompassing theEarth, as can be seen in Figure 6.5. All objects in the sky can be thought F IGURE App A.1

Orbital Elements

Appendix A: Orbital Elements 305 of as being on the sphere. The celestial equator and the celestialpoles are projected from their corresponding earthly equivalents.Angles measured north or south from the line of the celestial equator are called the declination and are measured in degrees. This issimilar to lines of latitude. The longitude equivalent is called theRight Ascension or RA. This is measured in hours eastwards fromthe First point of Aries, which is given the symbol ^ .The Sun does not always appear directly above the equatorbut instead follows a path called the ecliptic, which takes it aboveand below it. When its path crosses the equator, it is called an equi-nox. For the northern hemisphere, the Vernal Equinox is usuallyabout March 20. This is when the length of daylight and darknessis exactly equal, and the Sun is directly above the equator. Thedirection of the Sun from the Earth on this day is known as theFirst point of Aries.The longitude of the ascending node is the angle from the FirstPoint of Aries to the ascending node, taken anticlockwise if look-ing down from the north, in the plane of the Earths equator. Argument of Periapsis or Perigee (

w ) This defines where the perigee of the orbit is, in respect to theEarths surface. This is the angle formed, in the plane of the satel-lites orbit, from where the satellite crosses the Earths equator atthe ascending node, to when it reaches perigee. If the angle is lessthan 180, perigee is in the northern hemisphere, larger than 180,it is in the southern hemisphere. Eccentricity (e) This is the shape of the orbit. Most orbits are not circular butlook liked squashed circles, called ellipses. How flat the ellipselooks is called its eccentricity and it is given a value from zeroto one. An ellipse with zero eccentricity is a perfect circle and avery flat ellipse has an eccentricity nearing one, as can be seenin Figure 1.3.

306 Its ONLY Rocket Science Semi-major Axis (a) This defines the size of the orbit. The long axis of an ellipse iscalled the major axis, the shorter one, the minor axis. In a circle,both the major and minor axes are the same, and are called thediameter. Half of the major axis is called the semi-major axis. Thisis the equivalent of the radius in a circle. The length of the semi-major axis is used to describe the size of the ellipse. The propertiesof an ellipse are shown in Figure 4.4. Anomaly at Epoch (v) Anomaly in this sense is an angle. The anomaly at epoch is theangle between where the satellite is now, compared to where itwas at perigee. If the satellite is at perigee, the anomaly is zero.At apogee, it is 180, and back to perigee is 360. As most orbitsare not circular, the measurement of this angle is not easy and sothe angle is given in terms of a fraction of an orbit, with one orbitbeing 360. Time of Periapsis or Perigee Passage (T) This is simply the time when the satellite was at perigee. This usu-ally comprises the date and time, given in Universal Time or UT.For most purposes, this can be taken to be the same as GreenwichMean Time (GMT).

Appendix B:

Coordinate Systems Geocentric Coordinate Systems Usually, the centre of the Earth is used as the origin for the coordinatesystem for spacecraft in orbit around the Earth. This is called a geo-centric coordinate system and is shown in Figure B.1. A geocentricequatorial coordinate system is a Cartesian system that has the fun-damental plane as the plane of the equator and the x direction towardsthe Vernal Equinox or First Point of Aries. The z direction is through theNorth Pole and the y direction makes up the right-handed set. Exceptfor precession, the wobbling motion of the Earths axis of rotation,this system is fixed to the stars and the Earth rotates within it