Tag
4 articles
Real satellite orbits are not the perfect Keplerian ellipses of textbooks. Earth's oblateness, solar radiation pressure, atmospheric drag, and third-body gravity continuously alter every orbit. How satellites detect, model, and correct these perturbations — and what it costs in propellant.
A deep technical analysis of atmospheric re-entry thermodynamics: Rankine-Hugoniot shock relations, Fay-Riddell stagnation heating, ablative TPS mass pyrolysis, plasma sheath ionisation, and the non-equilibrium aerothermochemistry that defines the design envelope for every crewed vehicle returning from orbit.
How do spacecraft generate power? From silicon solar cells degraded by particle radiation to plutonium-fuelled RTGs running for decades — the engineering of spacecraft power systems and the constraints that determine which technology fits which mission.
Specific impulse (Isp) is the single most important performance metric in rocket propulsion. What it means physically, how it derives from exhaust velocity, why it governs mission architecture, and how every propulsion type compares — from cold gas to ion drives.