Astronautics

The only textbook on the market dealing comprehensively with the physics of spaceflight
Based on the author's extensive teaching and his work with students
Provides problems and solutions covered in no other textbook (relativistic flight, new solution to Lambert problem)
Illustrated with more than 250 figures

Autorentext

Ulrich Walter received his PhD in the field of solid state physics from the University of Cologne, Germany. After two post-doc positions at the Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, Illinois, and the University of California at Berkeley, California, he joined the German astronaut team and flew in 1993 on board the Space Shuttle Columbia on the STS-55 (Spacelab D-2) mission. From 1998 to 2003, he held various R&D management positions at the IBM Research Center in Böblingen, Germany, and in 2003 accepted a professorship to head the Institute of Astronautics at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. Professor Walter is author of a number of popular science books on spaceflight and research, and astrophysics and cosmology. Currently, the main focus of his scientific work is on satellite technology and applications.

Inhalt
Rocket Fundamentals.- Rocket Flight.- Rocket Staging.- Thermal Propulsion.- Electric Propulsion.- Atmospheric and Ascent Flight.- Orbits.- Orbital Maneuvering.- Interplanetary Flight.- Planetary Entry.- Three-Body Problem.- Orbit Perturbations.- Reference Frames.- Orbit Determination.- Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics.-Thermal Radiation Physics and Modeling.