Recent content by jsandberg

Thanks for all your help! Much appreciated.

Yes, that is where my problem is. Do I substitute the equation for "r" every time I see an "r"?

Thank you for your quick response! Yes, changing the radius and velocity components helped a lot. I am still having trouble simplifyin the equation, however (see attached). Thanks again for your time.

Homework Statement Derive the Gauss Variational differential equation for the true anomaly, f, with respect to time using components along the radius, angular velocity, and a unit vector orthogonal to those two (ir,itheta,ih). Homework Equations Sorry, I don't know how to use Latex. But...

Thank you! To calculate the orbial elements, I need norm(r), which means I need the position vector. How do I calculate this if I'm not integrating the position?

Yes! I am so sorry, I have never posted on a forum before and don't know how it works. Let me try to summarize. I am to find the time-varying elements (a,e,i,w,Omega,f) over 20 orbital periods for a satellite orbiting the earth. The equations are given on page 488 of this textbook...

Homework Statement The orbital elements (a,e,i,w,Omega,f) are to be integrated forward in time using two methods: 1) Cowell's method, which is direct interation, and 2) Gauss' Variational diffeential equations. The full assignment description, initial conditions, and my code are given in the...