Question

A spacecraft of mass 6.00 ? 10⁴ kg is in a circular orbit at an altitude of 200 km above the Earth's surface. Mission Control wants to fire the engines so as to put the spacecraft in an elliptical orbit around the Earth with an apogee of 4.00 ? 10⁴ km. How much energy must be used from the fuel to achieve this orbit? (Assume that all of the fuel energy goes into increasing the orbital energy. This model will give a lower limit to the required energy because some of the energy from the fuel will appear as internal energy in the hot exhaust gases and engine parts.)

Answer 1