Animate Satellite Orbits Around a Planet

Charles Lee, California State University-Fullerton, Mathematics

Initial Publication Date: November 1, 2024

Summary

This activity is suitable for HS students if they are interested in creating satellite orbits around any planet in the solar system. This can be further developed for more advanced HS or college students to address solving ODEs, Orbital Mechanics, Rotation, MATLAB Animation, etc. Future work includes adding ground surface and line-of-sight in-view calculations.

Physics, Engineering, Mathematics | High School (9-12), College Lower (13-14), College Upper (15-16), Graduate/Professional | Online Ready

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Learning Goals

Concepts include
(1) understanding planet sizes, durations of the day, rotations, etc.
(2) ODE solver
(3) Geometry
(4) Animation

Context for Use

HS or college students can find this activity interesting

Description and Teaching Materials

This is a stand-alone activity. Students with little or no knowledge of MATLAB can run and modify to explore. Additional work is needed to speed up the process.
Animate script (MATLAB Live Script 344kB Nov1 24)