On Sun, 9 Sep 2001, Ahmet Gorgun wrote: > What is the cause of this circularization trend? Does this happen with > every satellite of eccentric orbits? And why the different rate of motion > for perigee and apogee? Lunar and solar gravitational effects play a role in perturbing satellites that orbit far from Earth, especially an orbit like Chandra's that reaches half way to the Moon. At apogee the satellite is moving the slowest and the lunisolar effects are greatest, so the velocity vector is more easily perturbed; this ultimately causes a bigger change for the perigee. Robert Fenske, Jr. rfenske@swri.edu Sw |The Taming the C*sm*s series: Southwest Research Institute /R---\ | Signal Exploitation & Geolocation Div | I | |"The Martian canals were the San Antonio,Texas USA ph:210-522-3931 \----/ | Martians' last ditch effort." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/seesatindex.html
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