Orbital mechanics is a cornerstone subject for aerospace engineering students. However, with its basis in classical physics and mechanics, it can be a difficult and weighty subject. Howard Curtis – Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Embry-Riddle University, the US’s #1 rated undergraduate aerospace school – focuses on what students at undergraduate and taught masters level really need to know in this hugely valuable text. Fully supported by the analytical feature… More >>
Orbital Mechanics: For Engineering Students
Tags: aerospace engineering, classical physics, cornerstone, Engineering, engineering students, howard curtis, masters level, Mechanics, Orbital, orbital mechanics, riddle, Students, weighty subject
#1 by J. Soelberg on January 27, 2010 - 7:51 pm
With textbook prices continuing the trend of double every year, it’s about time that a useful text can also be affordable, great text for learning and understanding space flight, includes MatLab algorithms!
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by Albert Zhou on January 27, 2010 - 7:55 pm
Took a little longer than I liked to get here (about 6 days) but still well within their delivery estimation
Book is in great condition. Seemed like new to me.
Rating: 4 / 5
#3 by Warchief on January 27, 2010 - 10:10 pm
I also had Aircraft Structural Analysis textbook written by the same author, which was never updated, unreadable & full of errors. I’d say that Mr. Curtis should stay away from Structure because this textbook is a totally different reading experience compared to the previous book I mentioned before.
First, it is affordable, it only costs me $45 (I bought mine from third party vendor listed on Amazon Marketplace); second, it is readable & actually has examples that the readers could understand. The only thing that annoyed me a bit is the fact that the a lot of the important formulas are not organized or boxed, so readers have to do it manually with pencil. A few chapters, especially chapter 10 needs to contain more example or expanded further in order to enlighten the audience about the material. Going to lecture might improve the readers’ overall experience, so don’t use the book as self study because the vast amount of mathematical derivations could be discouraging.
Rating: 4 / 5
#4 by Alexander G. Berta on January 28, 2010 - 1:08 am
I have dealt with quite a lot of textbooks over the years here at college and as a senior I feel that this text, Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students, is an excellent, well developed textbook. The explanations are very thorough and the examples are numerous enough so that any student can grasp/master the content. I definitely recommend this for any engineering student (especially Aerospace Engineering).
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by N. Ibrahim on January 28, 2010 - 3:07 am
Good book, but with typos here and there. There is an errata if you search for the book’s website and most of the errors you can spot easily. What makes this book especially useful are the MATLAB functions, which allow you to implement the theory without having to debug newly written code (this is more time consuming, than difficult).
This is however a beginner’s book into orbital mechanics, but gets the job done if you want to sim a basic interplanetary mission relatively accurately. For a more refined approach with I would suggest “Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics” by Hughes.
Rating: 4 / 5