Hacker Read top | best | new | newcomments | leaders | about | bookmarklet login

Well, it depends. Over short distances and timescales, relative motion behaves pretty much as you would expect for objects in free-fall. It's only over significant fractions of an orbital period that counterintuitive things start happening, with orbital speed and height influencing each other. (You can think of this as a tidal or Coriolis-esque pseudoforce that appears to increase in magnitude as objects get farther from each other.)

In general, there are many possible paths you can take to achieve an orbital rendezvous, varying widely in how long they take and how much fuel they consume.



view as:

Legal | privacy