Product Description
Fundamentals of Astrodynamics and Applications is rapidly becoming the standard astrodynamics reference for those involved in the business of spaceflight. What sets this book apart is that nearly all of the theoretical mathematics is followed by discussions of practical applications implemented in tested software routines. For example, the book includes a compendium of algorithms that allow students and professionals to determine orbits with high precision using a P… More >>
Fundamentals of Astrodynamics and Applications
Tags: algorithms, compendium, fundamentals of astrodynamics, fundamentals of astrodynamics and applications, orbits, practical applications, software routines, spaceflight, theoretical mathematics
#1 by Anonymous on June 29, 2010 - 5:36 am
This is a detailed text covering a broad collection of the most relevant topics, primarily aimed at engineers and engineering students practicing astrodynamic theory and orbit determination. It properly emphasizes that modern astrodynamics is now practiced on the computer, combining numerical methods with classical celestial mechanics to provide dozens of algorithms suitable for machine solution. It excels on two fronts: 1) it provides much generic “pseudo-code” (computer recipes) for writing subprograms, and 2) it touches on everything from Keplerian motion to estimation theory to atmospheric modeling for drag perturbations. Because it covers so much in under 1000 pages, the author does not fully derive all the algorithms. However, there is a fifteen page appendix of additional references, and the author’s disarming writing style makes the text very approachable to the student. It is well illustrated with excellent diagrams and numerous tables, and much of the notation (equations and symbols) is standardized with other textbooks in this field.
Being a 1st edition, it has a few mistakes. There is a couple of noticeable equation typos and some numerical errors in a few of the many examples (the programmer will quickly discover these). There is probably undue emphasis on some minor topics, and likewise a few important concepts are sometimes briefly mentioned without clarity. Being so broad in scope, the reader is sometimes required to go from chapter to chapter to get the big picture or gather all the details. While this may be distracting at times, most of the needed information is there – few astrodynamics textbooks can claim to be as complete.
An engineer or computer programmer who needs to solve problems in this field will immediately discover that this title serves to fill a large void in the academic literature on non-relativistic astrodynamics. Those wanting a purer treatise of fundamental theory might find a text on analytical celestial mechanics or dynamical astronomy will help supplement this text for self-study.
Rating: 4 / 5
#2 by Anonymous on June 29, 2010 - 6:16 am
For my work I needed to get up to speed on astrodynamics calculations very quickly. This book proved invaluable in that respect. I particularly appreciated the algorithms and examples that the author presented in addition to the usual derivations. The algorithms, in particular, proved very helpful in writing computer programs for my modeling and simulation work. I think that the material is readily understandable by upper level undergraduates in engineering, math, or physics. I also found the author’s style enjoyable to read. There are numerous references for further study. I would recommed this book quite highly.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by Anonymous on June 29, 2010 - 9:00 am
This is a book I would definitely recommend for those interested in the practical application of basic Astrodynamics. The only real problem is you have to double check the math since there are a fairly large number of errors in the computations. I especially like the discussions comparing and contrasting different methods and algorithms.
Rating: 4 / 5
#4 by Bogdan Udrea on June 29, 2010 - 10:51 am
I find this book to be excellent from the point of view of the practicing engieneer. Vallado gives a lot of details on how to solve practical problems and puts a wealth of information in terms one can use almost directly to write algorithms.
The book is structured so that the chapters flow in logical manner. Once you understand the logic you’ll have no problem navigating the book.
It is true it is not a book for beginners. I’ve tried to teach Orbital Mechanics out of it to junior level aerospace engineering students and most of them didn’t like it.
The book has quite a few typos but an errata is available on the publisher’s website. Also available on the publisher’s website are the algorithms presented in the book – in FORTRAN, C, C++, Ada, and MATLAB.
Overall I believe that Vallado put back “Fun” in “Fundamentals”.
Enjoy!
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by Richard Larsson on June 29, 2010 - 12:34 pm
A good book summarizing the field. Quite easy to use for studying, with lots of examples and good pictures to describe the concepts. Included is also a lot of easy to use algorithms, which makes applying the concepts in programming really simple.
Rating: 4 / 5