New Orbital Mechanics Course at CU

Starting this spring, a new orbital mechanics course is being offered for Clarkson University upper-year undergraduate and graduate students. The course being taught by Prof. Bazzocchi will provide students with an overview of the fundamentals of orbital mechanics, and is the most recent of a series of courses being developed to support Clarkson’s transition to an aerospace program. A brief description of the course is provided below:

Orbital Mechanics (AE 470 / ME 570)
This course provides an overview of the fundamentals of orbital mechanics. Beginning from kinematics and rigid body dynamics, students are introduced to topics in orbital and attitude dynamics and control. In orbital dynamics and control, core topics covered include: the two-body problem, orbital motion, Kepler’s Laws, orbital elements, orbital perturbations, orbital maneuvers, interplanetary trajectories, and the restricted three-body problem. In attitude dynamics and control, core topics covered include: attitude stabilization, torques on a spacecraft, torque-free motion, spin and dual-spin stabilization, gravity-gradient stabilization, and active attitude control..

Prerequisites: ES223 (Rigid Body Dynamics), AE/ME324 (Dynamical Systems), MA330 (Advanced Engineering Mathematics), or equivalents