Orbital maneuvers

• Orbital maneuvers transfer a spacecraft from one orbit to another.

• Orbital changes can be dramatic, such as the transfer from a low-
earth parking orbit to an interplanetary trajectory.
• They can also be quite small, as in the final stages of the rendezvous
of one spacecraft with another.
• Changing orbits requires the firing of onboard rocket engines.
 Impulsive maneuvers
• Impulsive maneuvers in which the rockets fire in relatively short bursts to
produce the required velocity change (delta-v).
• brief firings of onboard rocket motors change the magnitude and direction of
the velocity vector instantaneously.
• During an impulsive maneuver, the position of the spacecraft is considered to
be fixed; only the velocity changes.
• The impulsive maneuver is an idealization by means of which we can avoid
having to solve the equations of motion with the rocket thrust included.
• The idealization is satisfactory for those cases in which the position of the
spacecraft changes only slightly during the time that the maneuvering
rockets fire.
• This is true for high-thrust rockets with burn times short compared with the
coasting time of the vehicle.
• Each impulsive maneuver results in a change ∆v in the velocity of the
spacecraft.
• ∆v can represent a change in the magnitude (‘pumping maneuver’) or the
direction (‘cranking maneuver’) of the velocity vector, or both.
• The magnitude ∆v of the velocity increment is related to ∆m, the mass of
propellant consumed, by the formula

• where m is the mass of the spacecraft before the burn, go is the sea-level
standard acceleration of gravity, and Isp is the specific impulse of the
propellants.
• Specific impulse is defined as follows:

• Specific impulse has units of seconds, and it is a measure of the

performance of a rocket propulsion system.
• Isp for some common propellant combinations are shown in following table,

• Figure is a graph of Equation 1 for a range of specific impulses.

• There are no refueling stations in space, so a mission’s delta-v schedule must be carefully
planned to minimize the propellant mass carried aloft in favor of payload.
 Hohmann transfer
• The Hohmann transfer (Hohmann, 1925) is
the most energy efficient two-impulse
maneuver for transferring between two
coplanar circular orbits sharing a common
focus.
• The Hohmann transfer is an elliptical orbit
tangent to both circles at its apse line, as
shown in Figure.
• The periapse and apoapse of the transfer
ellipse are the radii of the inner and outer
circles, respectively.
• Only one-half of the ellipse is flown during
the maneuver, which can occur in either
direction, from the inner to the outer circle,
or vice versa.
• Energy of an orbit depends only on its
semimajor axis a. and is expressed as:

• Increasing the energy requires reducing

its magnitude, in order to make ε less
negative.
• Therefore, the larger the semimajor axis
is, the more the energy the orbit has.
• As shown in figure, the energies
increase as we move from the inner to
the outer circle.
• Starting at A on the inner circle, a
velocity increment ∆vA in the direction
of flight is required to boost the
vehicle onto the higher-energy
elliptical trajectory.
• After coasting from A to B, another
forward velocity increment ∆vB places
the vehicle on the still higher-energy,
outer circular orbit.
• Without the latter delta-v burn, the
spacecraft would, of course, remain
on the Hohmann transfer ellipse and
return to A.
• The total energy expenditure is
reflected in the total delta-v
requirement,
• ∆vtotal = ∆vA + ∆vB .
• The same total delta-v is required if the transfer
begins at B on the outer circular orbit. Since
moving to the lower-energy inner circle requires
lowering the energy of the spacecraft, the ∆vs
must be accomplished by retrofires.
• That is, the thrust of the maneuvering rocket is
directed opposite to the flight direction in order
to act as a brake on the motion.
• Since ∆v represents the same propellant
expenditure regardless of the direction the
thruster is aimed, when summing up ∆vs,
• A spacecraft is in a 480 km by 800 km earth orbit (orbit 1 in Figure). Find
(a) the ∆v required at perigee A to place the spacecraft in a 480 km by 16
000 km transfer orbit (orbit 2); and (b) the ∆v (apogee kick) required at B
of the transfer orbit to establish a circular orbit of 16 000 km altitude
(orbit 3).
• The perigee and apogee radii are,

• Eccentricity of Orbit 1 is,

• Applying the orbit equation at perigee of orbit 1, we calculate the angular

momentum,

•
• With the angular momentum, we can calculate the speed at A on orbit 1,

(1)
• Moving to the transfer orbit 2, similarly we have

• Speed at A on orbit 2 is,

(2)
• The required forward velocity increment at A is now obtained from (1)
and (2) as

• Use the angular momentum formula to find the speed at B on orbit 2,

(3)

• Orbit 3 is circular, so its constant orbital speed is obtained is expressed as:

(4)
• For a circular orbit, e = 0 and orbital equation (
)expressed as :

• That is, r = constant, which means the orbit of m2 around m1 is a

circle.
• Since r ̇ = 0, it follows that v = v⊥ so that the angular momentum
formula h = rv⊥ becomes simply h = rv for a circular orbit. Substituting
this expression for h into above Equation and solving for v yields the
velocity of a circular orbit,
• the delta-v requirement at B to climb from orbit 2 to orbit 3 is

• the total delta-v requirement for this Hohmann transfer is

Bi-Elliptic Hohmann transfer
• A Hohmann transfer from circular orbit 1 to circular
orbit 4 in Figure is the dotted ellipse lying inside the
outer circle, outside the inner circle, and tangent to
both.
• The bi-elliptical Hohmann transfer uses two coaxial
semi-ellipses, 2 and 3, which extend beyond the outer
target orbit.
• Each of the two ellipses is tangent to one of the circular
orbits, and they are tangent to each other at B, which
is the apoapse of both.
Bi-elliptic transfer from inner orbit 1 to outer orbit 4
• The idea is to place B sufficiently far from the focus
that the ∆vB will be very small. In fact, as rB approaches
infinity, ∆vB approaches zero.
• For the bi-elliptical scheme to be more energy efficient
than the Hohmann transfer, following condition need
to be satisfy:
• Delta-v analyses of the Hohmann and bi-elliptical transfers lead to the
following results,
• Plotting the difference between Hohmann and bi-elliptical ∆vtotal as
a function of α and β reveals the regions in which the difference is
positive, negative and zero.

Orbits for which the bi-elliptical transfer is either less efficient or more
efficient than the Hohmann transfer.
• From the figure we see that if the radius rC of the outer circular target
orbit is less than about 11.9 times that of the inner one (rA), the
standard Hohmann maneuver is the more energy efficient.
• If the ratio exceeds about 15, then the bi-elliptical strategy is better in
that regard.
• Between those two ratios, large values of the apoapse radius rB favor
the bi-elliptical transfer, while smaller values favor the Hohmann
transfer.
• Small gains in energy efficiency may be more than offset by the much
longer flight times around the bi-elliptical trajectories as compared with
the time of flight on the single semi-ellipse of the Hohmann transfer.
• Find the total delta-v requirement for a bi-elliptical Hohmann transfer
from a geo-centric circular orbit of 7000 km radius to one of 105 000 km
radius. Let the apogee of the first ellipse be 210 000 km. Compare the
delta-v schedule and total flight time with that for an ordinary single
Hohmann transfer ellipse.

• rB /rA = 30 and rC /rA = 15

• To do the delta-v analysis requires analyzing each of the five orbits.
• Orbit I
• Orbit I is a circular orbit, so,

(1)
• Orbit II
• Angular momentum in terms of the periapse and apoapse radii, is expressed
as,

• For this transfer ellipse, we have

• So we can,
(2)

(3)
• Orbit III
• For the second transfer ellipse we have,

• So we can

(4)
(5)
• Orbit IV
• It’s a circle so,
(6)

• For the bi-elliptical maneuver, the total delta-v is,

•
• The semimajor axes of transfer orbits 2 and 3 are

• Expression for Period

• the time of flight for the two semi-ellipses of the bi-elliptical transfer is
found to be
• For the Hohman Transfer Ellipse 5

• So,

• Therefore, we can calculate

• This is only slightly (0.44 percent) larger than that of the bi-elliptical transfer.
• The semi-major axis of the Hohmann semi-ellipse is,

• Time of flight from A to D is

• The time of flight of the bi-elliptical maneuver is over seven times

longer than that of the Hohmann transfer.