Energy and Momentum: Orbiting Spacecraft
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A spacecraft is traveling in a circular orbit (see attached file) around the earth at an altitude of 210 miles.
When the craft reaches point A, its engines are fired for a short period, reducing its speed by 7.5%. The resulting path is the (elliptical) crash trajectory AB. Determine the angle b, measured from the nonrotating x-axis, which locates the landing site.
Hint: point A is the apogee; remember that the polar angle, q, is measured from the perigee where it is zero, toward the apogee where it is 180 deg.
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Solution Summary
The solution addresses the question of determining the angle of the crash path of an earth-orbiting spacecraft in the attachment provided with annotated calculations.
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