{"id":188762,"date":"2024-05-06T10:25:03","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T15:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/an-old-abstract-field-of-math-is-unlocking-the-deep-complexity-of-spacecraft-orbits"},"modified":"2024-05-06T10:25:03","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T15:25:03","slug":"an-old-abstract-field-of-math-is-unlocking-the-deep-complexity-of-spacecraft-orbits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/an-old-abstract-field-of-math-is-unlocking-the-deep-complexity-of-spacecraft-orbits","title":{"rendered":"An Old Abstract Field of Math Is Unlocking the Deep Complexity of Spacecraft Orbits"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

The original version of<\/em> this story<\/em><\/a> appeared in<\/em> Quanta Magazine<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

In October, a Falcon Heavy rocket is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida, carrying NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper mission. The $5 billion mission is designed to find out if Europa, Jupiter\u2019s fourth-largest moon, can support life. But because Europa is constantly bombarded by intense radiation created by Jupiter\u2019s magnetic field, the Clipper spacecraft can\u2019t orbit the moon itself. Instead, it will slide into an eccentric orbit around Jupiter and gather data by repeatedly swinging by Europa\u201453 times in total\u2014before retreating from the worst of the radiation. Every time the spacecraft rounds Jupiter, its path will be slightly different, ensuring that it can take pictures and gather data from Europa\u2019s poles to its equator.<\/p>\n

To plan convoluted tours like this one, trajectory planners use computer models that meticulously calculate the trajectory one step at a time. The planning takes hundreds of mission requirements into account, and it\u2019s bolstered by decades of mathematical research into orbits and how to join them into complicated tours. Mathematicians are now developing tools which they hope can be used to create a more systematic understanding of how orbits relate to one another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In October, a Falcon Heavy rocket is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida, carrying NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper mission. The $5 billion mission is designed to find out if Europa, Jupiter\u2019s fourth-largest moon, can support life. But because Europa is constantly bombarded by intense [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,2229,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-mathematics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}