Question

Planetary Resources, Inc. launched it’s “tug” spacecraft to bring an asteroid into a elliptical Earth orbit with a semimajor axis of 7000 km and an eccentricity of 0.05. At the completion of this mission, a second “miner” spacecraft was launched into the asteroid orbit. When the spacecraft reaches orbit perigee, it is 20° behind the asteroid. Calculate the semimajor axis of the “miner” spacecraft’s phasing orbit required to rendezvous with the asteroid. Assume the phasing maneuver is initiated at perigee. HINT: In this case, you will need to calculate the asteroid travel time () using Kepler’s equation.

Answer 1

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