Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students

Howard D. Curtis authored Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students, 4th Edition Revised Reprint, as a core academic textbook covering the fundamental principles of space flight trajectories. Published by Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann in 2021, this volume equips aerospace engineering students and undergraduate readers with quantitative tools for analyzing orbital pathways.

The main thematic sequence begins with point mass dynamics and two-body problem analysis, advancing to calculations of orbital position as a function of time. The text expands into orbits in three dimensions, preliminary orbit determination routines, impulse orbital maneuvers, and relative motion with rendezvous operations. An introduction to orbital perturbations introduces additional external forces that affect satellite trajectories.

To support applied coding assignments, the textbook features downloadable MATLAB algorithms for practical and project work. This balanced combination of mathematical exposition and computational problem-solving directly supports upper-level undergraduate courses focused on space mission mechanics and orbital trajectory analysis.