The programs displayed below is a compilation of various calculations utilized in the multi-step process of acheiving sub-orbital, orbital, or interplanetry space flight. The following content was compiled by high school student Jacob Rodriguez as a continual effort to not only provide a resource for aspiring rocket scientists, but also a usefull array of astronautical calculators to compile values otherwise explicitly done by hand.
Orbital Velocity & Period Calculation
The orbital velocity formula is a calculation that derives the speed of a satellite that maintains a circular orbit around a astronomical body. This calculation requires the input of 1 user generated variable, being the distance the satellite is from the earth's surface. This program returns both the orbital velocity and orbital period of a satellite traveling at the entered orbit height.
Enter Radial Distance Between Orbitting Satellite and the Earth's Surface:
Escape Velocity Calculation
The escape velocity formula is a calculation that derives the velocity needed to leave the gravitational field of a massive body to the point of no further impulse. The needed variables include the planet or moons mass in kg and radius from the planet's radius in meters. The Algorithm then deposits the velocity needed in meters per second. Some sample variable pairs are listed in the table below for user input and ranged estimations.
Planet
Mass(kg)
Radius(km)
Mercury
3.285E23
2440
Venus
4.867E24
6052
Earth
5.972E24
6371
Mars
6.39E23
3390
Jupiter
1.898E27
69911
Saturn
5.683E26
58232
Neptune
1.024E26
24622
Uranus
8.681E25
25362
Enter the Mass(kg) of the Planet to Be Escaped In Scientific Notation (Including the 'E'):
Enter the Radius(km) of the Planet to be Escaped:
Entered Sequentialized Orbit Given Delta-V
In space flight, their are 3 sequences of staged orbitals beginning at sub-orbital, elliptical, and eventually hyperbolic. Then beyond the earth orbitals, a spacecraft can enter the orbits of other astronomical bodies ranging from a lunar to Jovian orbit. Based on the amount of thrust/ Delta V given by the propulsion system, a rocket will enter the orbital that coincides with the established thrust velocity. This program accepts an amount of Delta- V entered by the user and calculates the orbital that it will be entered, displaying each possible orbital trajectory. *NOTE The entered value must be a positive real number.
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