Basic orbit maneuvers
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Understanding Kepler's laws
Kepler defined his laws before Newton found out how gravity causes these laws, so it is a nice set of rules of thumb for spaceflight.
- The first law defines what a orbit in Keplers eyes is: An ellipse (or circle) with the central body in the focal point of it.
- The second law describes the change in velocity with changing distance to a planet. The further you go away from the planet, the slower you get on the same orbit. It comes from the law of conservation of angular momentum.
- The third and last law defined the changes in Orbit period.