Astronautics The Physics of Space Flight

This book covers all the key concepts, relationships, and ideas behind spaceflight and is the perfect companion for students pursuing courses on, or related to, astronautics. As a crew member of the STS-55 Space Shuttle mission and a full professor of astronautics at the Technical University of Munich, Ulrich Walter is an acknowledged expert in the field. This book is based on his extensive teaching and work with students, and the text is backed up by numerous examples drawn from his own experience. With its end-of-chapter examples and problems, this book is suitable for graduate level or even undergraduate courses in spaceflight, as well as for professionals working in the space industry. This fourth edition includes substantial revisions of many sections to extend their coverage. These include an overview of the different approaches to solving Newton’s gravitational equation of motion, a concise and newly structured coverage of orbital maneuvering, an enlarged and improved sectionabout the sphere of influence, a new section about hierarchical three-body systems, major enlargements in space reference frames and orbit geometry, and a new section about the earth reference ellipsoid.

Rocket Fundamentals.- Rocket Flight.- Rocket Staging.- Thermal Propulsion.- Electric Propulsion.- Atmospheric and Ascent Flight.- Principles of motion in gravitational fields.- Types of Orbits including radial trajectories and stellar motions.- Orbital Maneuvering.- Orbit transitions.- Interplanetary Flight.- Planetary Entry.- Three-Body Problems.- Orbit Perturbations and resonant orbits.- Reference Frames.- Earth and Orbit geometry.- Orbit determination.- Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics.-Thermal Radiation Physics and Modeling.

Background

Research Areas

Since March 2003, he holds the chair of the Institute of Astronautics at the Technical University, Munich. He lectures and does research and development in unmanned and manned space technology and in systems engineering. His main research is in real-time space robotics, intersatellite link communication technologies, technologies for planetary exploration, and system  modeling and optimization.