5 min

000A: How do you move around in space‪?‬ Nibbles in Space

    • Technology

The main way of changing the velocity of a spacecraft is to take part of the mass of the spacecraft, and eject it; anything but small plane changes require a lot of energy, which can make such manoeuvres prohibitive; the Earth’s diameter is almost 43km more at the equator than between the poles; Sun-synchronous orbits are used in Earth observation missions to maintain consistent illumination of the ground throughout the year.

The main way of changing the velocity of a spacecraft is to take part of the mass of the spacecraft, and eject it; anything but small plane changes require a lot of energy, which can make such manoeuvres prohibitive; the Earth’s diameter is almost 43km more at the equator than between the poles; Sun-synchronous orbits are used in Earth observation missions to maintain consistent illumination of the ground throughout the year.

5 min

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