This highly regarded book provides a bridge that spans spacecraft maneuvering and control techniques with associated physical fundamentals. Beginning with an examination of the basic principles of physics underlying spacecraft dynamics and control, the text covers orbital and attitude maneuvers, orbit establishment and orbit transfer, plane rotation, interplanetary transfer and hyperbolic passage, lunar transfer, reorientation with constant momentum, attitude determination, and attitude adjustment requirements. Additional topics include attitude control devices as well as automatic attitude control, orbital perturbations, and the fundamental methods of astrodynamics. A final chapter explores some special problems in this field.
This treatment is suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduate students and professional engineers in astronautics. Each chapter presents relevant exercises of varying difficulty, and the text includes a section of answers to selected exercises.
