Books for understanding Orbiter

[lowerlowerhk]

I have played Orbiter for a while and I can do quite a lot of fancy journeys.

But that is only on a operational aspect. I want to learn more about the mathematics and mechanics about planet orbits and driving a spaceship.

Is there any books or sources that I can begin with?

 

[SandroSalgueiro]

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/index.php

http://www.astronautix.com/

http://www.orbiterwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://spacelog.org/

Those are my favorite online sources -- have fun.

 

[Quick_Nick]

My favorite: http://www.braeunig.us/space/orbmech.htm

 

[Wishbone]

Bate, Mueller, White. Fundamentals of Astrodynamics. (1971) - a good introductory-level text.

 

[Urwumpe]

Also, if you want to learn more about understanding the world of spaceflight, I can recommend you to get some DVD boxes:

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_We_Left_Earth:_The_NASA_Missions"]When we left Earth: The NASA missions[/ame] - Discovery Channel (Especially the bonus videos are good, you can find them also in the internet after some searching, but you rarely know of them before)

From the Earth to the Moon - HBO

This isn't really helping you learn the math, but both tell some good stories about why spaceflight today is like it is. Especially they also give some nice insights in the engineering and training.

 

[Blacklight]

We should get a thread stickied with these links ! These are fantastic !

 

[orb]

We should get a thread stickied with these links !

Done. :thumbup:

 

[Ripley]

When we left Earth

All the episodes

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4fVE0eqV3vvPK2KyHIjt_Q/videos

(found here on OF, somewhere...)

Introduction - NASA Science

This tutorial offers a broad scope, but limited depth, as a framework for further learning. Any one of its topic areas can involve a lifelong career of

solarsystem.nasa.gov

 

[Tychonaut]

A very nice book, with little to no math but lots of diagrams, and mentioned in the Go Play In Space tutorial.
To Rise From Earth

I've never read this, but it's supposed to be quite good.
SMAD

Kinda pricey unless you buy used or an older edition, and won't really help you with Orbiter since the engines are largely abstracted away, but a great read to understand how all your maneuvering actually happens.
Rocket Propulsion Elements

Helpful book on orbital mechanics with tons of equations.
Orbital Mechanics...

 

[Sword7]

I found a few good books that I searched for.

3D Engine Design for Virtual Globes - how to render planet with LOD levels and jitter elimination due to 32-bit float inaccurate.
Computational Space Flight Mechanics - space flights with switching between reference frames and planetocentric coordinates, etc.
Principles of Flight Simulation - how to write flight/space simulators

 

[CTarana45]

NASA has some free Ebooks on their website. Just Google NASA EBooks!

Thanks, Guys!

Christopher Tarana

 

[kalral]

Not a book but an opensource library that can teach you a lot of things about orbital dynamics and spacecraft attitude dynamics.
Source - https://bitbucket.org/avslab/basilisk/src/develop/
Interesting presentation about the library

 

[Sbb1413]

We should get a thread stickied with these links ! These are fantastic !

@dbeachy1 Do this again.

 

[dbeachy1]

@dbeachy1 Do this again.

This thread is already a sticky thread. Or were you requesting something else??

 

[N_Molson]

Not a book stricto sensu, but still a good educational resource :

Basics of spaceflight (NASA) :

Introduction - NASA Science

This tutorial offers a broad scope, but limited depth, as a framework for further learning. Any one of its topic areas can involve a lifelong career of

science.nasa.gov